Bullwhip29 points out an article that says the BC first time buyer loans program will likely cost the government twice as much as they claim.
“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.”
Read the full article here.
Home Capital’s fourth quarter earnings down on lower than anticipated mortgage renewals
http://business.financialpost.com/business/home-capitals-fourth-quarter-earnings-down-as-company-records-lower-than-anticipated-mortgage-renewals
Two corruption trials for Liberals will overlap
https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2017/02/08/two-corruption-trials-for-liberals-will-overlap.html
“…one-time McGuinty chief of staff David Livingston and his deputy Laura Miller face breach of trust and mischief charges in the alleged deletion of documents in relation to two cancelled natural gas-fired power plants in Oakville and Mississauga before the 2011 election…”
“Miller is now executive director of the British Columbia Liberal Party, helming re-election efforts for Premier Christy Clark this spring.”
“Miller had initially stepped down from her post with the B.C. Liberals to organize her defence when charged, but was reinstated in March in a move Clark called “the fair and right approach, one that respects the fundamental principle that every person is innocent unless proven otherwise.”
China to start fingerprinting foreign visitors
http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/china-to-start-fingerprinting-foreign-visitors-1.3277544
Real New Year Lion dance by Vancouver Fire Fighters
The municipality of Vancouver now also has the highest population density in Canada — with a density rate of 5,493 people per square kilometre.The population of the metropolitan area of Vancouver outpaced the national growth rate over the last five years, growing 6.5 per cent since the last census was conducted in 2011.
“The municipality of Vancouver now also has the highest population density in Canada”
Meaningless, because CoV is the only major core city in the country that has not been amalgamated with its suburbs. The areas covered by the pre-amalgamation Toronto and Montreal have higher densities.
“Home Prices Hit Peak Levels In Majority of Metro Areas, Fourth Quarter Data Show”, Forbes
“The best quarterly sales pace of the year pushed available housing supply to record lows and caused price appreciation to slightly speed up in the final three months of 2016, according to the latest quarterly report by the National Association of Realtors. The report also revealed that sales prices in over half of measured markets since 2005 are now at or above their previous peak level.”
“Toronto Has Over 99,000 Unoccupied Homes, Here’s Where They Are “, Better Dwelling
“Hold my beer Vancouver, we got this. The newly released 2016 Census numbers from Statistics Canada, show the City of Toronto saw Vancouver’s 25k+ unoccupied homes, and trumped it by another 74k units. Now with over 99k unoccupied homes in the city, speculation of Toronto real estate might be worse than previously thought.”
https://dailyreckoning.com/92458-2/
China Approaches Breaking Point
They’re still out there. In fact, they’re just down the highway:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/for-chinese-home-buyers-seattle-is-the-new-vancouver-1486500393
Some one better tell the PROC that money is still flying out the door for real estate.
Why? You thought they were going to pack up and go back home? Thus is going to be an ongoing situation. Smart local giverments will take steps to prevent thm to make too much damage. But money is a powerful instrument, it corrupts.
HAM will buy everything up on the west coast not just Vancouver. When I alluded to the fact that a Vanc-Seattle-SFO bullet train could be a possibility down the road I was not kidding esp if a big chinese conglomerate ponies up much of the cash.
Bear Vancouverite:
356,000 Foreign students in Canada. 120,000 from China as of Dec, 2015. About 400,000 now and 140,000 from China. take a look at the mini graphs in the link below and you can plot the recent rise in YVR prices with the spike in foreign students.
http://canadaimmigrants.com/canada-international-students-by-country-2015/
There are over 1 million Chinese 10 year visa holders.
I’ve lowballed the figure for metro Vancouver saying currently 50,000 (12.5% of national total) foreign students here along with 100,000 (10% of Chinese visa holders) parents. UBC is presently 1/3rd foreign students now. The rate is higher at smaller schools.
People arguing these points can go fuck themselves. They are only here to confuse the people on the fence. Do not let them. The above totally explains the housing price increases we’ve been seeing the last few years.
“Vancouver housing starts slip after record 2016: CMHC”, Business In Vancouver
https://www.biv.com/article/2017/2/vancouver-housing-starts-slip-after-record-2016-cm/
“Housing starts across the Vancouver region dipped in January, according to new data from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).”
“A total of 16,519 homes were started in the Vancouver Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) in the month, down from 26,342 in December. This comes on the heels of a record year for starts across the region. Starts were trending at 24,597 units in January, down from 25,956 in December; this is the six-month moving average of monthly seasonally adjusted annual rates.”
How odd – it’s perfect house building weather.
“Census 2016: some of Vancouver’s richest areas are emptying out” Global News video
http://globalnews.ca/news/3237329/census-2016-vancouver-empty-homes/
“Some of the toniest neighbourhoods in Canada’s least affordable city are losing people at an accelerated rate.”
“That much is clear from Census data released Wednesday, which showed populations dropping in various areas on Vancouver’s west side, traditionally seen as the city’s most affluent area, compared to other neighbourhoods.”
Why you keep spewing MSM BS? The reason the population is dropping in those areas is cause they don’t count ‘Temp’ residents. If they counted human bodies living there, then population is higher than ever.
Temporary residents – students and work permit holders are counted.
http://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb/p2SV.pl?Function=getSurvey&SDDS=3901
No they are not.
Awesome rebuttal. You have a contradictory link which is more authoritative? Or are you confusing your beliefs with facts again?
Of course they are empty, just have a walk around Tolie or Discovery at night. All dark, no noises, no residents. Point Grey is becoming a ghost town, shops are strugglng.
And it is all because our Provincial goverment let the Chinese buy homes as a storage of value, effectively used as Swiss bank accounts. Anonymous and reliable safe deposit boxes.
Christy Clark made millions for those who sold, but screwed up everyone else.
If it was just about the Chinese Christy would not need a series of policies designed to get locals to buy or hold overvalued properties.
I think shops are struggling for a few other reasons. The first is that property taxes are insanely high for commercial businesses. The second is that labour is hard to find because this is such an expensive city. The third is that a lot of people are maxed out on mortgage debt and don’t have a lot of disposable income. Maybe the body count is down too but I think the other factors are more significant.
I think more and more, the business model that works are things like Starbucks that have high volume and good labour productivity. I think a lot of mom and pop businesses will just disappear. I bet a lot of these businesses can’t even be sold because who wants to buy a job in a declining retail environment?
Vancouver has the highest proportion of empty, underused homes in 35 years
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/vancouver-has-the-highest-ratio-of-empty-underused-homes-in-35-years/article33961876
Anglosaxon countries seem to be specializing in laundering and storing illicit money. I start to see a pattern.
“This Haven for Billionaires Has a Murky Trust Issue”
The case has shone a spotlight on a multi-billion dollar trust industry in New Zealand that allows foreigners to hold assets with minimal disclosure.
While Prime Minister Bill English’s government has committed to tighten rules around trusts and legislation is before parliament, the opposition wants it to do more to safeguard the image of a nation that tops global transparency rankings.
Can someone tell me why no party is raising this issue in Vancouver? Housing is held in anonymous trusts and used to hide wealth. Yet, we are all A-OK with that?
What do you mean no party? The NDP wants to impose an annual tax on properties where the owner (whoever or whatever) doesn’t pay appropriate income taxes
Yes. But in the past few weeks all they talk about is childcare and pipelins. Are they chickening out?
I’m sure it’d go down a treat with retirees. They barely vote anyway, so it’ll be fine.
You nailed, greedy retirees will vote in mass for Christy. Yet the tide is slowly turning. More and more people are being left out of the party.
@ Just me
agreed. many hypocritical coolaid drinking krusty voters in previous elections are out in the cold now. the question is, how many?
You already know the NDP’s proposed legislation exempts retirees, but thanks for pointing out the kind of lies Christy is going to use.
http://www.bclaws.ca/civix/document/id/lc/billscurrent/5th40th:m209-1
It still explicitly excludes retirees who might have moved to BC from another province.
“Hong Kong’s Frenzied Home Buyers Just Can’t Be Stopped”
I am crossing fingers that our prices are not arbitraged out with theirs. But the long term tendency is clear and ominous for us.
To be fair one makes a whack more money in HK thru employment than one can here.
But yes the potential for the prices (not the incomes) to cross over is scary
HK prices have nothing to with incomes.
New
143
Price Change
25
Sold
153
TI:7823
Sales are getting steady. Trend?
All my flipper friends are waiting to list once snow melts and cherry blossoms, by then there’ll be a faak load o listings
Krusty’s interest free loans for condo buyers is luring in some idiots.
This is the second sales/list over 100% in the last 7 days.
My concerns are materializing again. People here were talking as if we had gone over the bump.
My only remaining hope is an NDP government in May.
It’s mostly lower-end condos that are driving the current market. It’ll eventually run out of steam just like the other market segments.
Ah yes, it’s always the poorest that are the last to get the message? No one is buying $3M homes, maybe you should be concerned. Naw, lets blow our savings and dig into our RRSP to pat $400K for a 15 year old 2 bedroom Burnaby condo.
Only 5 of those sales were Vancouver detached.
Uh
Oh
People are driving up the condos and tow homes as they haven’t appreciated as much.
But remember, an equivalent percentage rise in a 1 million dollar home and your 2 million dollar dream home still puts you out of reach, even if you own the 1 million dollar home, unless your income can cover a significant increase in the mortgage you’re going to need to trade up.
B.C. workers the most unmotivated in Canada: survey
http://bc.ctvnews.ca/b-c-workers-the-most-unmotivated-in-canada-survey-1.3276838
>>> should this come as any surprise? surely not…since typical RE owners are (ahem…were…) making more re-arranging throw pillows than they were slaving away at their real jobs.
I totally agree with you! I work with boomers that own million dollar homes. They just don’t give a s#%# about work just on cruse control.
just hearing word that The Trudeau budget is looking at increasing the Capital gains Tax.
Maybe across the board? Please write to your MP and spread the word to other sites that capital gains tax should be increased from 50% inclusion rate to 100% for residential real estate.
Premier Clark claims NDP tried to hack Liberal website — but provides no proof.
Premier Christy Clark kicked that up a notch on Tuesday by flat-out accusing the rival New Democratic Party of trying to hack into her party’s website.“The NDP has said it’s going to be the ugliest, dirtiest campaign that we’ve ever had.
https://www.facebook.com/TheProvince/videos/10155064914012009/
Nice bungalow at UBC, only $4200 per month (down from $4,500)
https://www.rentwithadvent.com/point-grey-3-bedroom-house-rental-1808-acadia-vancouver
“Vancouver’s population growing slower than province’s” Vancouver Courier
http://www.vancourier.com/news/vancouver-s-population-growing-slower-than-province-s-1.8868736
Vancouver’s population is growing slower than the province’s, newly released provincial statistics show.
“From 2015 to 2016, the number of people living in British Columbia grew by 1.2 per cent. The growth in Vancouver that year was 0.9 per cent.”
“Metropolitan Vancouver population grew at slower rate than other western Canadian cities”, Georgia Straight
“There’s a perception that the Lower Mainland’s population is among the fastest growing in Canada.”
“In fact, metropolitan Vancouver did not even crack the top 10, according to data just released by Statistics Canada.”
Oracle, what are your thoughts on this whole census thing? They are missing a couple of millions who are hiding behind the student, tourist, housewife visas in the region?
They don’t include the international students nor their families who are here on 10 year visitor visas. Nor is any temp resident included.
There are about 50,000 students from China here along with 100,000 ten year visa holders parents who are not counted. That right there is demand for potentially 50,000 detached homes right there.
And now we know here are 1 million if these visa holders in China. And most will come here.
Thanks!
Oracle, could you cite and link to some of the sources of data, or did you arrive at these numbers by canvasing yourself?
Also, something I don’t understand in your thesis. You’ve maintained adamantly that Indians and Asians will live 10 to a house as a means of affording overpriced real estate, but now you say that 150,000 students and 10 year visa holders have a demand for 50,000 detached homes. Wouldn’t that be a demand for 15,000 detached homes, as per your multi-generational living thesis? And why would 100% of such studends and visa holders live in SFH? I know off the top of my head at least 6 such students and they all live in condos.
Oracle extracts all his so-called stats directly from his rectum.
“The census enumerates the entire Canadian population, which consists of Canadian citizens (by birth and by naturalization), landed immigrants and non-permanent residents and their families living with them in Canada. Non-permanent residents are persons who hold a work or student permit, or who claim refugee status. ”
Statscan.
Hard to defy gravity regardless of the size of a bullshit…
Asia’s superpower in 2040 won’t be China!
http://www.businessinsider.com/japan-will-be-asias-superpower-in-2040-2017-2
