It’s the end of another work week 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:
–Home sales plunge 40%
–Foreign buyer tax zone effect
–12 WTF charts
–REBGV monthly report
–FBT and real estate donations
–
So what are you seeing out there? Post your news links, thoughts and anecdotes here and have an excellent weekend!
[…] Bullwhip29 points out an article that says the BC first time buyer loans program will likely cost the government twice as much as the say. […]
$150 million new courthouse on the way for Abbotsford
http://www.abbynews.com/news/412975293.html
“The B.C. government announced Monday evening that it had signed off on the construction of a new 14-room $150 million courthouse to replace the current facility…”
preparing for the priced out COCS who are going to be moving in. soon condos in vancouver will be unaffordable if they aren’t already.
‘Abbotsforward’ plan to curb urban sprawl and improve walkability
More Canadians are raiding their RRSPs to buy a house, make ends meet and pay off debt
http://business.financialpost.com/personal-finance/retirement/rrsp/more-canadians-are-raiding-their-rrsps-to-buy-a-house-make-ends-meet-and-pay-off-debt
Pitt Meadows mayor offended by mega home application on protected farmland
http://www.metronews.ca/news/vancouver/2017/02/07/pitt-meadows-mayor-offended-by-home-on-farmland.html
B.C.’s homeowner loan program twice as expensive as government claims
http://www.metronews.ca/news/vancouver/2017/02/07/davidoff-bc-homeowner-loan-program-twice-as-expensive-.html
“The Ministry of Finance estimates that for every dollar of loan proceeds under HOME, taxpayers will lose about 19 cents in administrative costs and foregone interest. This estimate ignores the cost of default losses that may arise if borrowers are unable to repay their loans.”
“Pre-sold condos hold out hope for speculators”, Business in Vancouver
https://www.biv.com/article/2017/2/pre-sold-condos-hold-out-hope-speculators/
“As overall price increases flatline in Vancouver’s more regulated housing market, assignment sales of uncompleted highrise condos – which are exempt from B.C. assignment and foreign-buyer tax regulations – might offer the best hope for speculators in 2017.”
“The result has been a surge in assignment sales of condos in sold-out but uncompleted Vancouver towers, with investors hoping to catch the uplift in value since the condos were first sold.”
new developments including pre-sales also exempt from anti-flipping rules
and we all know what this first time buyer loan is all about too…
China says no more organs from executed prisoners
China Courts Ivanka, Jared Kushner to Smooth Ties With Trump
Oracle. This article is for you
https://www.yahoo.com/news/worried-trump-asylum-seekers-walk-cold-road-canada-183626789.html
No its not. You have no clue where I’m coming from. Nothing to do with xenophobia.
I’m a numbers guy. Slow steady immigration would have accomplished the globalization goal.
The greedy bastards messed it up. Purposely? That is the big question.
New
260
Price Change
38
Sold
146
TI:7819
A little bit of an uptick in volume right now compared to the comatose January. To make last year’s number we would need 200/day all month – these numbers are healthy but nothing too spectacular. What’s interesting was really the stall in listings last week. We need to get the numbers up to about 8400 by end of Feb to be on the normal seasonal inventory trajectory. On a completely separate note – What do you think the impact of the empty home tax will be? If I owned in Vancouver for my vacation property (for my own use) – I would basically sell now. Do you think that many of the absentee owners actually don’t understand what they are going to have to pay? I know they have until the end of this year to sell but I would… Read more »
Inventory going to be low going forward. People expect Christy to win and get rid of FBT and let in a 100,000 more ‘students’.
Some ‘students’ in Richmond had a competition yesterday….lets just say there were Lamborghini Aventadors being driven in the snow. These are the real expansion versions of the car. About 20-25 exotics . Money to burn.
Did Lamborghinis have the winter tires?
Kamloops hospital’s $417 milllion expansion given green light
http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/kamloops-hospitals-417-milllion-expansion-given-green-light
>>> it’s raining money…krusty and the libs going all in. new schools, new hospitals, new bridges, new houses for everyone…
Except the fact that CBC radio is consistently uncovering cases of extreme under-funding of elderly disabled home care, disability assistance, drug addiction programs and support.
This provincial government is shameless: they give goodies to the rich, and only to those who are likely to give votes in return. Rich boomers get the candies, poor and disabled get the boot.
Christy just decided to spend a few hundred millions on subsidizing the mortgages of families that should instead save their own downpayment. That money would have been better spent in schools and social assistance programs, where the standards of service have sunk to incredible lows in the past 5 years.
She must go to prison (solitary confinement) for a long, long time, disgusting.
People must rise and take back what’s theirs by force.
That’s how it’s been all along History! What’s changed now? What’s that? Oh we’re civilized now?
Naive and schooled. Just like the climate change crowd who runs with what MSM tell em.
They’re doing it in Romania as we speak millions on the streets.
The poverty levels are not high enough in the western world to get angry people on the streets to oust a corrupted scum. However our legal system is useless in that regard so people here are stuck with the shit. For what you hope for, the “critical mass” is required to hit the street and current situation is nowhere near it hence you can only count on elections what is acutely essence of democracy.
People aren’t stuck with any politician because we have elections. And don’t tell me they’re rigged – Alberta’s PC government went down in flames to the NDP. People in BC support Christy because they think she’s making them rich and they don’t care about anything else. That’s the sad truth.
You’re a climate change denier too?
Volumes = explained
Show me the data that is real. Irrefutable proof. I’ll be waiting.
So much irony pain….
You reject all evidence that doesn’t suit you – on all topics.
Sell.
“When prices level off, that’s when danger really begins to set in for investors, LePoidevin said.
He warns that one of the main drivers of Vancouver’s run-up in housing prices – foreign capital flows – could be slowing, as China looks to ramp up efforts to halt capital outflows and Ottawa makes its own assessments.”
LePoidevin is Garth Turner West in that his motivation for spewing bearish sentiment is that same. He wants you to not buy, and instead invest with him…or else sell, and invest the proceeds with him. That doesn’t mean he’s not right this time.
No kidding. The blow-off top we saw last Spring was the “triggering event”.
so where are we in comparison to the nasdaq dotcom bubble timeline? year 2000, 2008 or is this something new? note that despite the nasdaq crash 1.0 and 2.0 it is back to new highs in 2017
The article & video link is from July 11, 2016.
Anybody else get ads for dating Chinese girls at Vancouver Condo? Might be a good option for some people to get into this housing market. Find yourself a Chinese family that wants to park their money here and marry their daughter/son. I said before if I was 20 years younger, I’d leave the City. But in that alternative reality, I think I’d give marrying for citizenship a shot. Or maybe, my wife and I should get divorced and if we each marry into money and later take half in the divorce, we’d end up with a free house.
Dave, the ads are based on your searches. I get RV ads.
LOL, I know. But this is the only place I get ads like that because we hit a lot of the trigger words. Now that I wrote all that above, I wonder if more people start getting them.
Right, the forum is dominated by Chinese hookers. Must be somehow related to the local RE businesses?
Are you guys discussing Julia Lau?
I got an ad for auto towing. I’m not sure why, but I’m a bit worried now.
I think the ads are also based on the content of the forum. Right now I have an ad for a loan shark called “freedomlending”. That’s an explanation for the Chinese babes as well.
The ads are based on your searches. I was looking up winter coats at the Hudson Bay site and then started to get ads here for winter coats from the Bay. Looked up a bed on Ikea and voila, Ikea and bed ads started showing up.
Looks like someone with ‘yellow fever’ got busted. I hope your wife doesn’t know this blog and your handle. : )
They’re based on more than just searches. Pretty much any website that serves ads can track you, even across multiple devices, even if you never arrived at them via a search. The technology is sophisticated because of the fierce competition for eyeballs.
I am now seeing an ad for a “Real Estate Wealth Expo” in Toronto. This is on a Linux guest account which has an empty home disk, i.e. no cookie history.
That doesn’t negate what I said. There are multiple factors involved.
Stop surfing Chinese porn, Dave…
Say no more.
Trudeau, Aka Mr Liar, new plan is to raise the retirement age to 68.
I thought high immigration levels were going to fix the demographic crisis? Candians need to wake up now and toss this gov out for their sake.
“Trudeau, Aka Mr Liar”… You do know what they say abut people in glass houses, right ChinaOne?
GT tweeting out of his way that foreign money not driving up GTA real estate.
Aren’t there penalties for deception in the financial industry? Some elderly may be swayed by this false info and sell their homes only to invest with GT. If Madoff can go to jail, I find this very disturbing. Huge conflict of interest.
Foreign home buyers love Toronto for the schools: Realtor
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/programs/metromorning/richard-silver-foreign-buyers-treb-1.3968484
Obama’s cruel policy reversal on Cuban refugees
WHERE WAS CHRISTY AND THE REST WHEN THIS WAS HAPPENING?
Video summarizing January Stats. Guy does weekly videos too. https://youtu.be/ZjtlQZG7v8c
Trump ban may mean ‘huge upswing of interest’ in Canada for foreign students
http://vancouversun.com/business/local-business/trump-ban-may-mean-huge-upswing-of-interest-in-canada-for-foreign-students
It’s the K-12 foreign students I’m most worried about.
Those kids tend to buy houses in bunches.
No kidding!
Maybe just show, but it’s the message that counts.
Australia Orders Sale of 15 Illegal Foreign Property https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-06/australia-orders-sale-of-15-illegal-foreign-property-purchases
Yes, the message is that if you buy illegally the only penalty you’ll face is having to sell. I recall a lot of talk on this forum about Oz having much stricter penalties on the books, but I guess they’re not willing to walk the talk.
Better than standing idle wnd taking it in the chin. Got to start from somewhere.
Of course taxation would be preferable but we have been discussing this for years, while the Chinese were buying up in bulk.
Oz loves Chinese RE investment and they get far more of it than Canada. They just want it done in a way that maximizes RE industry profits and pays the pittance of taxes that is legally required.
On that score, I agree. Politicians down under are some of the dirtiest in the business. And laws are bent regularly to benefit the real estate interest groups.
But the new construction rule dies have the benefit to induce more stock for the additionsl demand. Or it should, depending on implementation.
“New construction” in Oz includes tearing down an existing house and building another. In other words, virtually all the offshore ownership in Vancouver would be legal under Oz law. Here’s the reality which the Oz government policies have produced:
Thousands of empty homes adding to Sydney’s housing crisis, experts say
On that score, I agree. Politicians down under are some of the dirtiest in the business. And laws are bent regularly to benefit the real estate interest groups.
But the new construction rule dies have the benefit to induce more stock for the additionsl demand. Or it should, depending on implementation.
Was driving down Fraser St (near Earnest Ice Cream) yesterday and noticed all the houses on 3 entire corners/intersections at Fraser and E 22nd have sprouted new For Sale signs. Not familiar with the real estate agency. It wasn’t a big one like Remax or Royal Pacific. Most of the houses are not even that old. Some showing up on REW already and listings say they are for Land Assembly. Will the City allow developers to tear down newish houses and build more apartments/condos on this part of Fraser? Most seem to be duplexes.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard’s worrying take On China: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/02/05/asias-top-banks-warn-chinese-capital-flight-becoming-dangerous/ China’s central bank is running out of ways to stem capital flight and faces a near impossible task trying to manage the fall-out from extreme credit growth, two of Asia’s most influential banks have warned. “Defence of the currency by the People’s Bank (PBOC) is no longer a viable option,” said Eric Robertson, the head of global macro strategy for Standard Chartered. The Asia-focused lender said powerful forces are driving capital out of the country and the picture is fundamentally more disturbing than it was during last year’s devaluation panic. This is putting the PBOC in an invidious position as it attempts to deal with festering troubles in the banking system. The Institute of International Finance estimates that outflows reached a record $725bn (£581bn) last year and there is little sign of any… Read more »
Liberal flip-flop on foreign homebuyers tax costs honest owners — and taxpayers — dear
http://theprovince.com/opinion/columnists/mike-smyth-liberal-flip-flop-on-foreign-homebuyers-tax-costs-honest-owners-and-taxpayers-dear
This columnist is writing nonsense. Sob stories like this are just plain ridiculous. There is no reason why a new immigrant should buy within 6 months of landing in Canada. Nobody forced them, it was a choice. Wait until you get your PR and the money is saved.
Christy will male a big deal of such stories, as they help her plow a big hole in the FBT without actually abolishing it. Millionaire mainlanders can probably get a work permit set up within weeks. Remember the immigration scam in Richmond with fake employment records?
“There is no reason why a new immigrant should buy within 6 months of landing in Canada… Wait until you get your PR and the money is saved.”
An immigrant who lands in Canada is precisely someone with permanent residence. The tax never applied to immigrants.
As for people on work visas, most of them would not qualify for permanent residence regardless of waiting, and they don’t if they will get it until it’s actually granted.
I stand corrected. Nobody forces a person on work visas to buy. Renting is an option for many locals, it can be the same for them.
Does this make it clearer?
Nobody is ever forced to buy. However many people choose to, and value owning their primary residence due to the perception of increased stability.
Making it harder for families to relocate to Vancouver not only sends out the wrong sort of message but might deter skilled people from bringing their valuable experience to the city. “Let then rent” is not the solution.
Many here moan about Vancouver being a “backwater” with “no industry other than real estate” – well, the incoming skills are addressing that. But it takes years. Compare the tech industry today with a decade ago, for example.
The fix is lower prices, via reduced government intervention, and not less immigration.
Cue dumb comments from the class clown.
Only two paragraphs are worth reading in that article:
“When Clark announced the surprise tax exemption, she said it was in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries.
But I suspect there are many other reasons the government backed down, including anger from real-estate companies that donate to her Liberal party and anger from immigrant communities representing many votes in the looming B.C. election.”
She’s full of shit. The announcement was way too close to Trumps for that to true. Typical Crusty
She is an opportunist and a liar. But some people like liars.
agreed. for this to be announced in the manner it was, things were obviously discussed and planned well in advance. i think it was no surprise re. chinese new years announcement, the trump stuff turned out to be a pleasant surprise for her which provided her with both the perfect cover to announce exemptions and a convenient opportunity to score some political brownie points
now with the detail of the exemptions still up in the air not to mention refunds/rebates in the works to another hard to quantify number of buyers who had work permits and/or citizenship/PR applications pending, it may be entirely possible that the 15% FBT will be rendered completely useless. and as luck would have it anyone the bought during this period of uncertainty potentialy stands to make some quick and easy cash on the RE and will receive a nice 15% cash back bonus for doing so.
next up…another class action lawsuit…only this time the inverse of the Jing Li fiasco
“she said it was in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s travel ban”
Wow, I didn’t think even Christy would sink that low. As if Vancouver was full of Somalis on work permits wanting to buy RE.
It is Feb, 3 months to BC election. Who is the NDP leader, John Who?
Another easy win for Christy Clark. Home owners will vote her in again.
Developers are now behind the NDP. They are throwing the election. The sheep think it’s actually a real election. All optics.
Research NDP people running and ties to developers/RE. You’d be surprised now.
