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Friday Free-for-all! June 23rd 2017

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181 Comments

It’s that time of the week again… Friday!

That means it’s time for another Friday free for all post, 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:

–only 63 million

–bubble will burst

–flip flopped

–actual stats count

–yes we banned that word

On a side note,  if all you want to do is complain about foreigners and bitch about people sharing actual stats and analysis you can find plenty of other places on the Internet to do it.  We’re going to start banning IP addresses for racist comments and trolling so count this as fair warning.  We apologize in advance if this hurts your tender racist feelings.

Have an excellent weekend!

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Combat roach

C$ jumps to four-month high as Poloz raises prospects of July hike

http://ca.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idCAKBN19J1VU-OCABS

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southseacompany

“Why central banks should heed market bubble warnings and raise interest rates”, Financial Post

http://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/why-central-banks-should-heed-market-bubble-warnings-and-raise-interest-rates/wcm/dfcdf0cb-2d36-48ee-a811-4dd155c225a5

“If central banks have learned anything from the Great Financial Crisis, the worst since the 1930s, it is that you don’t need runaway inflation to raise interest rates. Financial market bubbles should be enough.”

“The Bank for International Settlements, often considered the central bank to the world’s central banks, warned on Sunday that policymakers should press ahead with the “great unwinding” of post-crisis stimulus, even if “some short-term bumps in the road” are inevitable.””

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Bag it and tag it

JT is a school teacher, so I’m sure he’s got this

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paulb

New
237
Price Change
72
Sold
127
TI:9354

http://www.clivestevepaul.com

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Whistler or Bust?

How much ended up at the Richmond Night Market?

http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/by-the-numbers-just-how-much-did-all-that-salt-cost-vancouver-taxpayers

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KickThemOut

Tourists approaches Grizzly for a photo

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/banff-bear-grizzly-photo-close-up-danger-1.4178541?campaign_id=A100

Is it something in the air & water that makes an entire race to be so f*ing stupid?! First the sea lion in Richmond and now Grizzly in Banff? Doesn’t this stupid commie sorry excuse group of uncivilized savage ever learn?

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David

The article does not say what race the guy was. The picture in the article shows a fat white skinned guy with long brown curly hair.

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Shut It Down Already

Duh.

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Combat roach

Don”t bother, the notorious imbecile thinks he is funny with retarded sarcasm.

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Just me

I had no doubt the BC Liberals and Christy Clark were just self-interested crooks. But I never realized that they were also such clowns. They frankly lack self-respect.

http://vancouversun.com/news/politics/b-c-finance-minister-to-rush-out-unaudited-financial-update-before-no-confidence-vote

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Bear Vancouverite

Oracle loves to say that Empty Homes are not empty because they are occupied by temporary and foreign residents. Check out this piece of data:

“Kelley cited Statistics Canada data taken on Census day on May 10, 2016, which showed that 21,820 homes were empty, and 3,675 homes were used by temporary and foreign residents, for a total of 25,495.”

So in fact, only 14% of “empty homes” are occupied by temporary and foreign residents.

http://www.straight.com/news/927761/city-vancouver-report-reveals-25495-homes-either-empty-or-used-temporary-and-foreign

In the same article they also stated this:

“In his report, Kelley wrote that many owners may have changed the status of their properties during the first half of 2017 in response to the tax.”

I suspect many of those are trying to “undeclare” their home as empty so they don’t have to pay the tax.

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Bear Vancouverite

Adding to this:

“An analysis of 2011 census data by the firm Urban Futures found that 13 percent of housing units in the category were occupied by students or foreign residents, while 87 per cent were unoccupied.”

http://www.metronews.ca/news/vancouver/2017/06/23/property-owners-requested-cap-on-empty-homes-tax.html

This means that between 2011 and 2016 (assuming both data colleciton methods are comparable) there’s been little increase in % of students and foreign residents occupying empty homes, so empty homes are not now occupied in greater proportion by a flood of foreign students and temporary residents than before.

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Abdul Lahazi

Thank you for posting these links as it is always good to see the hard real numbers instead of someone’s self absorbed spin and BS.

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Oracle

Stats are BS.

You do realize that there are 30 times more foreign students than that alone in Vancouver. Oh what’s that? They live with parents? Then their parents can’t be PR or citizens for their kids to be foreign students. And where are they classified.

I shake my head at Bears that can’t think critically. The stats are BS.

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Shut It Down Already

Fake news, Oracle?

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Owen

Well, for starters, the stats are specifically for Census Day, May 10th. That is outside of the normal university school year, so only those foreign students that stay to work or take Spring session courses would be around. We know from Hydro records that there were about 10,000 homes really empty for at least a year. Are there any stats out there on where foreign students DO live; like how many are in university residences that wouldn’t be counted as empty units?

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bullwhip29

B.C. leading rise in private school enrolment across Canada
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/private-school-enrolment-1.4179443

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KickThemOut

WTF does this have to do with RE?? Seriously? Unless these increases are lead by mainland Chinese who are destroying our public schools?

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Abdul Lahazi

You just answered your own question.

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KickThemOut

Whispers of Condo Buying Ultra Rich Asian Style redux – this time in Victoria during Canada Day long weekend As one girl puts it, you can get 2 waterfront condos in Victoria for the price of one!

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Hyper-mega-Bull

Alleged toddler birthday crashers attend 3-year-old Richmond boy’s party

http://globalnews.ca/news/3558003/richmond-toddler-party-crashers/?utm_source=GlobalNews&utm_medium=Facebook

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KickThemOut

So basically BPOM & Abdul are old HK ladies who are pissed that country bumpkins from China are now richer than they are?

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Abdul Lahazi

I am going to start crashing weddings with my cousin Ahmed. We’ll pick up lots of chicks just like in that movie.

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Shut It Down Already

That’s about the size of it.

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Combat roach

Typical Costco samplers went for the weekend all inclusive buffet. On the good side, they kept it monocultural mingling with their homies.

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bullwhip29

Lt.-Gov. Guichon faces decision with few precedents assuming Liberals fall
http://www.theprovince.com/news/local+news/guichon+faces+decision+with+precedents+assuming+liberals+fall/13550559/story.html

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Just me

These issues slowly erode the trust of regular citizens in the rule of law.
Politicians and enforcement agencies are playing with fire: letting these criminals free to violate our laws and conventions is damaging our social fabric.

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Oracle

Trust? That word is for the sheep.

Our government at all levels has turned a blind eye to the corrupt foreign money coming in. At the same time, they have spewed propaganda with the notion that high immigration levels are good for the working person. Furthermore, they have sold the peoples natural resources to foreign companies.

If you don’t see it by now, you never will. “Trust?”

LMAO. We are being raped.

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Shut It Down Already

The resources that have been sold are those that were discovered and developed by private companies at great expense and risk. Not “the people”.

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Oracle

Getting into power today in BC is like a dictatorship. You can complain but don’t have the power to do anything.

Now we will see if the Greens and NDP were lying about housing too. If they are, what can you do about it?

Nothing.

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bullwhip29

this is only the tip of the iceberg. forget about off the beaten path businesses in sask. i suspect there are numerous bogus companies all over greater vanc working with the likes of Vstar operating for the sole purpose of expediting the movement of foreigners to canada, assisting in the acquistion of fraudulent govt documents and providing advice on anything and everything as it pertains to finance, taxation, govt benefits and the exploitation of a myriad of loopholes including the often discussed vanc foreign buyer’s tax.

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Bag it and tag it

It would be so easy to crack down on this immigration consultants by having law enforcement pose as prospective clients.

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Shut It Down Already

How many immigration consultants do you think there are?

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KickThemOut

And the stupid alpha bears like BPOM, Combat Roaches, Abdul, etc laugh at me when I told them this is exactly what happens in my company. This is exactly why bears are always not just 1, but 5 steps behind the game. Cry all you want, at the end of the day, it’s only your fault, no one else.

Ever wonder what happened to all the other bears that disappeared over the years? Vangrl? VMD? etc? I bet they all bought now. Likely all happier too, and too ashamed to show their faces here, or ever want to acknowledge that they were once that stupid.

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Combat roach

As said many times before the current situation is ripe for the extreme approach (special units, antiterrorism & money laundering, homeland security) to deal with the nastiest of all scumbags and gangsters that humankind had ever seen. Unfortunately, when the shortsighted politician and legislators realize what is left of the country and how rotten plague infiltrated and contaminated all segments of society and economy it will be too late to change something and revert wasteland in making.

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Abdul Lahazi

You hit the nail on the head with this because when we reach critical mass with enough of these fine folks entrenched in our society then we will become just as corrupt as they are and that will be the end of Canada as we know it. It is probably already too late.

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southseacompany

“$13M in down payment loans driving Vancouver condo prices up: Economist”, Global News

http://globalnews.ca/news/3557925/13m-in-down-payment-loans-driving-vancouver-condo-prices-up-economist/

“A B.C. government program aimed at helping first-time homebuyers with their down payment has loaned out more than $13 million in its first six months.”

“But one economist says the big payout by the BC Home Owner Mortgage and Equity Partnership program appears to be one of the factors fueling the region’s newly soaring condo market.”

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Abdul Lahazi

Christy Clark to her real estate and developer backers: “Our plan is working perfectly” HAHAHA <— evil laughter.

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Oracle

The ways its going, i think people are soon going to be priced out of townhomes.

Unbelievable.

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Time to go

Soon!? It’s already happened in Vancouver. Townhomes all starting at 1mil.

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ostritch

I posted this before and it disappeared:

http://globalnews.ca/news/3554540/condo-flipping-on-the-rise-as-vancouver-market-heats-up-realtor/

Are you guys gonna cry Uncle yet or what? It’s up 20 points during the exact time when you said it was going down.

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paulb

New
212
Price Change
81
Sold
191
TI:9281

http://www.clivestevepaul.com

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Bear Vancouverite

I find it amusing that some people are already arguing the empty home tax will fail because they assume that every single person who has an empty home will lie about it or find some illegal/fraudulent way to get around it. Like with anything else, there is a spectrum of what people will do. Some will pay the tax. Some will try to rent their units out. Some will sell their empty homes. Some will try to lie, others will do this awkward “ghost renter” that bullwhip29 is convinced everyone will do. We don’t need 100% of the cheaters to be caught for enforcement to work on whatever proportion of cheaters are out there. Not everyone has the same risk tolerance for getting caught. We don’t need 100% of empty homes rented or paying the tax for this to be… Read more »

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Bear Vancouverite

Also: I recall at one point people were saying speculators would just laugh and pay the empty home tax, until it was pointed out that would generate massive revenues (UBC Economist Tom Davidoff recently remarked he expects up to $100M a year is not impossible to get from this empty home tax if done properly). After that the story became one about hiring someone to turn on and off lights or buy timers to do it for them (I turn on 3 my husbah turn on 3?) After that the story became about hiring friends or families to be “ghost” tenants. Which would be fine, since we can then collect tax income from the rent declared from these arrangements. And then there’s talk about how the city won’t have manpower to handle things, except the City now says that the… Read more »

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bullwhip29

imho moonbeam will ultimately get all kinds of pushback from owners (and tenants) who are indeed playing by the rules and will refuse to bow to the overreaching demands of the rental gestapo

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KickThemOut

Until you get near 100% compliance and it becomes a cost black hole. Then what? And if reduces demand for housing units in Vancouver, do you think developers will magically lower prices and building more? No, they will just build less and invest in other cities that doesn’t have this tax like Burnaby, which is where most of the investors will move too. So in the end, this solves nothing because there will still be a shortage of housing and people still want to move to Vancouver, and bears will still cry themselves to sleep curse the evil Chinese. Fucking morons.

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Bear Vancouverite

Er… 100% compliance is a huge windfall of tax revenue. “We will lose money with 100% compliance” – said no tax collector ever. LOL.

Your argument about developers not building makes no sense.

Developers will build wherever there is profit to be made, and developers can be profitable whether housing crashes or not, their main risk when prices are going down is that they have to buy land at values that are higher than what they can sell at once the units are completed, but once prices stabilize they can continue to build profitably whether housing is 4x income or 12x. You yourself said that demand will be high in Vancouver no matter what, and where there is demand there will be those who try to meet that demand.

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bullwhip29

i have already had numerous people tell about the phantom renter scheme and to be honest, it is not that difficult to do. two families with university aged kids could easily do the swap and have each kid legitimately rent a unit from the other. as it stands, the 2000 or so audits that will supposedly get done will amount to a fraction of 1% of the available properties.

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YVR

“could easily do the swap and have each kid legitimately rent a unit from the other”

They would need for each kid to transfer over they driver license/id to that address, set up utilities in their name, then at least pretend to collect rent, claim rent on income taxes, lose principal home exemption. You need to do this year after year. After all this you are still subject to getting caught and paying the penalty plus even income tax fraud. Or they could just legitimately rent the place out and collect rent. Which is easier and pays better?

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bullwhip29

the ideal candidate would be some kid currently living at home who would just change address and maybe even live there part time. this could be done in a few days max. not talking about falsely claiming principal residence exemption, but rather facilitating what can be done with a vacant investment property that owner doesnt want to sell or rent out to a potential nightmare tenant. beyond checking tax returns, rental agreements and such I fail to see how much further a potential audit could cover without being overly invasive. seriously, do you really believe the city will (or could legally) conduct stake outs or send out the vacant tax police to do random “spot checks” to see if tenant really lives there 24/7? sorry, that won’t happen…

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YVR

“beyond checking tax returns, rental agreements and such…”

I guess we will find out. Seems like a lot of hassle and risk to try to keep a house sitting empty.

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bullwhip29

the fact is that lots of properties sit empty for a variety of reasons. i am not endorsing the use of such work arounds and loopholes, i am only stating what i hear from others. many owners simply parked cash in RE and don’t want the property used. having a friendly face monitor the situation appears to be the least bad alternative for these folks. i maintain my belief that this would be simple to execute and virtually impossible to police (without authorities overreaching in a big way)

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patriotz

“a vacant investment property that owner doesnt want to sell or rent out”

Oxymoron of the week.

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Fomo

Seems peculiar yes. Not your standard investment mindset to be sure. The mindset here is stronger for hoarding than “investment”.

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Shut It Down Already

Because if you’re not selling your stocks or loaning them to shorters you’re not really investing in stocks?

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KickThemOut

Right…because the city also mandates that rent must be market rents, it can’t be higher or lower, but must be market rent! And that owner must renters to live there! Yeap, if someone rents a place and don’t live there, that’s not allowed either! The owner must force the renter to live there!

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Bear Vancouverite

For sure there are all sorts of holes in the argument that people will have their kids and grandparents rent from each other. It’s ridiculous to assume every homeowner out there is now looking to defraud the tax in this way.

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Oracle

Do you even realize that all the empty homes can be filled by less than 1 year of new people that move to Vancouver?

Sometimes bears have a lack of math understanding.

It will fail.

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Shut It Down Already

What about all the vacant homes added by those who leave? You only look at one side of the equation, which is a little dishonest of you.

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BadMemory

Hi All,

I believe that I first heard about Maple Leaf Schools here, a couple years ago. It was spoken about it connection with a discussion of the mechanisms that are helping pump up the real estate market to unsustainable levels for the local population. If there is anyone reading now who has information about Maple Leaf Schools, could you point me to it? Thanks.

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KickThemOut

You know…we do have this new cutting edge technology called Google now….I think it’s pretty hard to use and all…I mean you have to type in your keywords in that textbox and hit enter and all that. Super hard to figure out. But really, you should give it a try.

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BadMemory

Sorry, I was also trying to recall the discussion that occurred here about them or at least more details about the context in which they were brought up.

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bullwhip29

Challenges derail arrival of new Canada Line station on Cambie Street in South Vancouver
http://www.straight.com/news/929446/challenges-derail-arrival-new-canada-line-station-cambie-street-south-vancouver

>>> our good ol’ pals at Onni changing the rules once again…

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KickThemOut

You honestly believe it will be easy to build new stations underground? Seriously?

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bullwhip29

get a clue. stations at 33 and 57 were already roughed in when cda line was first built. simply put onni wants station in a different location on other side of street and is using all this as a convenient excuse to bend the rules and likely soak other parties with the added costs. don’t get me wrong though, this station will get built as it is the key selling feature used in its marketing materials

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ostritch

What are you guys chatting about? Is it that condos are up almost 20%/yr or since you started saying the prices were going down?

http://globalnews.ca/news/3554540/condo-flipping-on-the-rise-as-vancouver-market-heats-up-realtor/

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Abdul Lahazi

Breaking News: A realtor says the market is heating up!

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Just me

Here is my answer to you:

https://www.zolo.ca/vancouver-real-estate/trends

We are down 6.7% YoY in Vancouver.

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Shut It Down Already

Your own source confirms that condos are up 14% year on year, dummy. I guess it really must be “just you”.

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Just me

Condos are not the whole market. You might have missed the carnage that is happening in the SFH market on the west side since the mainlanders relented.

Think before writing (I know it is hard for you but try anyway)

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Shut It Down Already

Dude, you were replying to a post about condos. Keep up.

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Just me

Dude, as I said many times, condos are inflated artificially by Christy Clark’s policies.
The people buying them will lose money over the next ten years.

Real value is in the land.

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ostritch

Why 10 years? And not 5? Or 1? Or 25?

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Just me

Let me repeat. The value is in the land.
All the young families using Christy’s help to buy are going to be suck in little condos or lose money.

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ostritch

Up 3%. Watch the report. So the opposite of down. Up.

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Just me

Maybe you have troubles reading?
Here is another link for you.

https://www.zolo.ca/vancouver-real-estate/trends

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Just me

One more thing; if condos are indeed much higher in price, the drop in prices/volumes for all other categories must be gigantic.
The average is indeed negative almost 7%. Do the math if you can.

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Shut It Down Already

Why do the math? The breakdown is on the very site you posted. Good grief.

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Oracle

Nothing is down. Prices keep going up. Tear down on a standard lot sold for $940,000 a few days ago here on North Surrey.

NDP?GREENS not even jaw boning the market down. That teardown was like $500,000 two years ago.

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Abdul Lahazi

Here is a big part of the problem:

http://globalnews.ca/news/3355579/things-you-didnt-know-credit-score/

“I have plenty of clients who bought houses two years after being discharged from bankruptcy,” he told Global News.

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bullwhip29

i’d say this is more of a symptom than the root cause of this entire situation, which is the both the allowance of all this questionable hot money to enter country and secondly, the relative ease with which it can parked into real estate of all shapes and sizes.

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Abdul Lahazi

Homeowner hit with extra $10K penalty for ending mortgage early :

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/go-public-mortgage-prepayment-penalties-first-national-1.4160456

“In 2012, Kara and his wife moved from Ottawa to Toronto, renting out their Ottawa house, hoping it would increase in value over the years. By February, that hadn’t happened and they were losing money, so Kara started looking into the cost of selling”

So this amateur speculator lost big and then runs to the media to cry about a mortgage penalty that he should have known about anyways. Boo Hoo.

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bullwhip29

imho they are only partly at fault as their bankers and the lawyers that represent them do very little with respect to outlining what is in the fine print. often the client doesnt see the 50 pg stack of paperwork until they meet with the lawyer in person where they spend a whopping 5 min whistling through initials and signatures. as for the in branch personal banker, i suspect they are “encouraged” to gloss over details like this (maybe even lie about it) to write up the business so that sales targets are met.

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Shut It Down Already

They’d have had the relevant paperwork from the time they signed up for the mortgage, surely?

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bullwhip29

nope, full documentation is generally never seen at the branch. clients are usually rushed thru the paperwork only at time of signing with the lawyer and by then it is too little too late. TD and CIBC are probably the worst of all. i’m not suggesting the buyer isnt at fault to a degree, but the onus should be on the banks to operate in a more transparent fashion

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Shut It Down Already

Full copies/documentation would be given to the buyer at the time of purchase. They would then have had the entire period that they owned the place to read it. In their case, that was 5 years.

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bullwhip29

generally buyers do not receive full documentation until closing completed with lawyer. between time mortgage is approved at bank and closing, buyers rarely parse thru the fine print or get a second legal opinion.
what happens during the following 5yrs is irrelevant

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Shut It Down Already

It’s irrelevant that they ignored the information that would have saved them $10K and now bleat about the fact that they weren’t informed?

Either way your reply suggests you still don’t understand my point. I’m not even sure you read the article.

They had ample opportunity to review the terms of their mortgage, chose not to, and now want to point the finger. No sympathy.

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bullwhip29

Few Vancouver condo owners selling as vacancy tax looms
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/few-vancouver-condo-owners-selling-as-vacancy-tax-looms/article35460287

Some Vancouver condo owners faced with having to pay the country’s first-ever municipal vacancy tax are planning to lie and see if they get caught.

Others are using creative methods to avoid it, like putting their units in the name of one family member and renting to another.

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Doomcouver

Although it’s a scumbag move, the odds are probably in their favor due to how overstretched the Vancouver bylaw officers are. It’s the same reason why illegal suites are so common. Laws are only as good as their enforcement. I think unless we get a few very public fines for vacant properties, this may be a failed tax. I’m hoping they’ll nail a couple tax cheaters to the wall to make an example out of them, but we’ll see.

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yvr2zrh

Remember, this is not a bylaw issue, this is a taxation issue. Failure to pay your taxes and being caught will be expensive – enough that you will be forced to abandon your property and lose 100% of your equity (and possibly more). The fines are 10,000 per day – which is $300,000 for a month. Basically, anyone who is caught would lose their property. Secondly – the identification of cheats is being outsourced (from what I can see). I believe the city has a contract to do 2,000 audits in a year and it will be done by one of the big accounting firms. With access to 100% of the property records, this testing of 2,000 transactions will not be random and will be focused on the units which are higher risk – thus likely finding more cheats. So… Read more »

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YVR

The big questions is how many days fine they will assess. They can assess $10k per day which would be $3.65 million for someone caught after 1 year. It will be fun to watch the first person get hammered with this and the media story with tears and all from the person that ‘did not understand’ they were lying on the declaration form.

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Shut It Down Already

Won’t happen. I imagine the first person to get caught will challenge, and the courts will find that $10K/day is unreasonable. Which it really is when you think about it.

It’s a deterrent that probably will not be enforced which makes it no deterrent.

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bullwhip29

imho the wording suggests penalties would not neccesarily be applied retroactively. maybe someone can clarify this but it sounds to me that someone caught might only have to pay tax, interst and a penalty if situation isnt rectified going forward??? if i am incorrect, penalty technically couldn’t exceed 6 months of fines per year, correct?

“False declarations will result in fines of up to $10,000 per day of the continuing offense, in addition to payment of the tax.”

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bullwhip29

if two seemingly independant parties hook up and provide each other with a phantom tenant, it will next to impossible to catch them in the act. it will be additional work for accountants, but at the end of the day after factoring in various writeoffs and deductions that you normally couldnt take advantage of, these owners will only have to pay a very small fraction of what the EHT would be. now if the powers that be actually audit the tenant’s finances and daily activities then maybe we’ll get somewhere. will that happen? not a chance…

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patriotz

” It’s the same reason why illegal suites are so common. ”

The City goes easy on illegal suites because they don’t want to reduce rental supply. It’s the opposite issue as empty properties.

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patriotz

” like putting their units in the name of one family member and renting to another.”

Which can get you into trouble with CRA as well as the City. A non-principle residence is a taxable asset. Well if they’re looking for trouble they’re welcome to it. Why not just sell?

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bullwhip29

in a properly functioning society one would expect such an outcome. the problem is that the govt and various other regulatory bodies have shown time and time again that they are all bark and no bite as there is both a lack of political will to pursue such matters to the fullest extent of the law and secondly, because the authorities simply lack the wherewithal and the manpower to implement such measures in the first place.

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