It’s the end of another week and that means it’s time for another friday free-for-all!
Let’s do that open topic thing.
–rising interest rates no problem
–Valley condo prices see sharp change
–money laundering investigation
So what are you seeing out there? Post your news links, thoughts and anecdotes in the comment section and have a great weekend!
[…] down, inventory up and prices are down for condos in the greater Vancouver area […]
“Province not stabilizing housing market the right way: BCREA”, Business In Vancouver
https://biv.com/article/2019/02/province-not-stabilizing-housing-market-right-way-bcrea
“B.C.’s housing market is moderating and moving in the right direction, according to finance minister Carole James.”
“The correction in the market is not over, she said Tuesday.”
“While B.C. is “starting to see moderation in the market,” James said, “I don’t think we are at a stage where we can say that housing is affordable.””
“NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh proposes new housing measures”, Global News
https://globalnews.ca/news/4981158/ndp-leader-jagmeet-singh-proposes-new-housing-measures/
“He is calling on the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) to support co-housing as a mortgage option.”
“He also would like to re-introduce 30-year terms to CMHC-insured mortgages for people who qualify for mortgages but need extra room in their budget.”
Another political who offers more debt as the solution.
“more debt as the solution.”…yes, sadly so – the central bankers have no solution other than debt to offer for macroeconomic problems. The politicians don’t either, except for more taxes.
Canada breaks tourism record with over 21 million visitors in 2018
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/canada-best-tourism-year-record-2018
Royal Lepage predicts healthy price appreciation for luxury real estate in every city except for Vancouver in 2019
https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/royal-lepage-forecasts-healthy-price-appreciation-for-luxury-real-estate-in-the-greater-toronto-area-greater-montreal-area-and-ottawa-839651829.html
B.C. drivers to fork out an extra $1.74 billion in ICBC premiums by 2022
https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/b-c-drivers-to-fork-out-an-extra-1-74-billion-in-icbc-premiums-by-2022
>>> there you go, problem solved…
Why not just shut ICBC down and let private insurance handle it
Absolutely. Why is the government involved in a service that the private sector can and has been supplying efficiently for years?
Hard to argue with the numbers on auto insurance:
Public:
British Columbia. Average monthly premium $119.
Private:
Ontario. Average monthly premium $160.
Public insurance was working pretty well in BC until the Liberals deliberately broke it.
Student groups call for Ottawa to investigate alleged interference by Chinese officials on Canadian campuses
https://vancouversun.com/news/student-groups-call-for-ottawa-to-investigate-alleged-interference-by-chinese-officials-on-canadian-campuses/wcm/b376dee8-bc9e-4647-b71f-47ed8f379ac5
Aussie housing crisis deepens:
https://youtu.be/R_8EE99V2sY
This is how mainland garbage behaves in our country. Try not to vomit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0ZfwWmaAJI&feature=youtu.be
they should keep their shit in their own country.
Project Dragon and China’s attempts to reclaim money from inside Australia
China has recruited the services of former police detectives in Australia and other Western countries to help it recover millions of dollars in alleged “hot money” taken out of the country.
Their mission is to recover proceeds of crime from China that have been transferred out of the country, or legitimate funds that have allegedly been illegally siphoned out to places such as Canada, the United States and Australia.
They say their strategy is simple: They attempt to meet with the property owners, explain they are working for the Chinese authorities and see if they are willing to hand over ownership.
“We can sell it, recuperate the losses and return the money back to China. Everyone’s happy,” Mr McFetridge said.
They say they’ve identified $80 million worth of property on the Gold Coast that they suspect has been bought with laundered cash by Chinese nationals.
If this could happen in Vancouver it would be an ultimate renaissance. Get the crap out of here and send it back where it belongs. Let them to deal with their shit as best as they can.
Mid month stats
https://dexterrealty.com/current-market-conditions.html
Steep decline in detached average prices, for what it’s worth.
Leakage has caused a concrete base in one of the six pools at the Minoru Centre for Active Living to shift, further delaying the opening of the new aquatics and fitness centre
https://www.richmond-news.com/news/richmond-aquatics-centre-opening-delayed-1.23640360
Richmond illegal hotel ‘more active’ after being fined, ordered to close by the city
City sets to take the operator to court in March
https://www.richmond-news.com/news/richmond-illegal-hotel-more-active-after-being-fined-ordered-to-close-by-the-city-1.23640341
Fucks just don’t give a shit and get pretty good along with it.
“Ted Townsend, spokesperson for the City of Richmond, responded saying the case with this house “is an ongoing file for us.”
“We have a court date in March with the individual accused of running the short-term rental. ”
More disrespectful thumbing the nose at our laws by chinese.
Seizure of the property is the only thing they would understand.
New
231
Price Change
87
Sold
135
TI:12049
Ah, there’s the CNY bounce.
Yes, they all wrote the exact same subject close day into their contracts.
Another stupid comment from the resident asshole.
In your haste to remind us all all what a horrid prick you are, you failed to notice that sales have made new highs for the year 3 days in a row.
When was CNY again? What’s the typical lag time in reported sales?
Oh no, I just got called a “horrid prick” by a proudly uneducated fuckwit racist.
But if you’re confident that sales aren’t just picking up the way they do every year perhaps you could share with us your awesome estimate of how many sales were a direct consequence of the moon.
Have you called the police yet, snowflake?
According to you, I threatened you.
Come on now, get that limp wrist of yours on the phone and start bawling to someone on the other end for help.
God, I hope for your sake you’re not a male…if you are then you’re doomed.
No quantification of the effect, then, merely more dumbfuck chest beating? Quite pathetic.
Make sure you tell them you’re a victim of a “hate” crime.
For added effect you should put a rope around your neck before they arrive, tell them your attacker was wearing a red cap, then call CNN.
Anderson Cooper will be over in just a few hours, all the way from fake news headquarters, breathless and excited.
It’s so adorable when you double down on your knuckle-dragging fuckwittery. What an angry loser you are.
Double down?
That’s one of the most grotesque and oft used expressions from the corrupt, treasonous, hate-peddling media.
It’s deserving of a montage showing every despicable fake journalist uttering it thousands of times over the past two years.
I can see that your indoctrination didn’t stop after you got your worthless liberal arts degree.
How many more years until you pay off your student loans?
Quite disturbing to see that locust still has unobstructed access to Vancouver housing stock after all being said and done.
I hate to say it but I’m tentatively calling the correction over.
Everything got busy all of a sudden.
Maybe people know NDP is done on housing policy. A 5% increase in FBT but loophole for students. And a watered down spec tax.
I think chances are prices will start going back up.
You lost me at “I hate to say it”.
We all know that’s not true.
Get out there and buy or be priced out forever…. Hurry up!
‘Greater Vancouver Condo Prices Officially Go Negative, Fewest Sales Since 2010″, Better Dwelling
“Greater Vancouver Condo Prices Are Down Over 6% From Peak”
“Greater Vancouver Condo Sales Fall Over 44%”
“Greater Vancouver Condo Inventory Rises Over 105%”
If there’s as many speculators in the condo market as I believe, we should see a dramatic acceleration to the downside in the spring. There hasn’t been this dramatic of a reversal in prices since 2008. For context for anyone who has forgotten the main reason why the downtrend reversed In 2007-2009 was because the BoC dropped rates from 4.75% to 0.5% over 17 months and successfully re-inflated the bubble. At the current 1.75% rate the BoC has about 37% of the rate-cut power they had the last time. What that means is once the market is spooked, there won’t be a matching crash in mortgage rates to usher the speculators back in. This ship is going down.
This. So much this.
They blew their wad during the GFC, and now are shooting blanks.
Worse than that is that the BOC needs to stay in lockstep with the US Fed, or else they risk devaluing the loonie.
In 2008 they juiced everything: Dropped borrowing costs 90%, extended amortizations 60%, allowed 0% downpayments, looked the other way when lenders didn’t check income documents, looked the other way when the world wanted to make us their laundry, etc.
What options do they have now? Hope and pray? Give rousing speeches to the media about how everything is fine? Everything is going to be fine? Please for the love of christ just don’t stop flipping houses to each other!!!
The bigger shoe still to drop is the 40,000 NEW condos waiting to hit the market over the next 18 months.
Want to hear something bullish?
Q4 of 2018 say the highest sales of new condos compared to any other year in history. The market absorbed a huge amount of product that was released.
From what I am seeing, the market will absorb that inventory.
I think the bearish case hinges more on completions, not sales, or specifically the failure of a large number of pre-sales to complete. As of today, almost zero completions are underwater, because everybody completing today has made a gain. If those people can’t complete, they’ll flip the assignment. I think those underwater completions are further out than 18 months.
40,000 condos is nothing over a year and half. Just one years foreign student intake…
You are hilarious…..
About stating the facts and hoping you get an iq boost so you can understand what’s going on.
Its awesome to listen to people who are trying to sell the “but it never goes down” narrative to themselves. But the best part of these narratives is the total disregard for local incomes. In your scenario, the majority of people with a local income cannot afford to live here. so you think these people will stay? Professional people will just accept living in 500 sq feet just for the pleasure of being in Vancouver? The city is getting hollowed out. And the problem is getting worse. You think this will continue? Who will provide the tax base when all the homes are owned by “students” and offshore investors? Will the baristas who make then their coffee and the car salesmen who sell them their cars get bussed in from 3 hours away? You think young teachers, accountants, lawyers, doctors,… Read more »
That’s true. A lot of investors are buying purely to rent to them.
Yup… Investors are buying them to rent… Because nothing like a nice negative cash flow on your “investment”
I suppose they can always persuade themselves that they made a gain by ignoring transaction costs.
Ontario homeowners and contractors are struggling with what some are calling an unprecedented province-wide shortage of salt
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/road-salt-ontario-1.5026021
Police are looking for the driver of a black Mercedes SUV who allegedly exposed himself to a teenage girl in Vancouver’s West Side on Tuesday afternoon
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/mercedes-driver-exposed-himself-teenage-girl-1.5026275
He wasn’t exposing himself. He was just giving her the standard CCP salute they give all westerners.
Bullwhip can identify the driver from only the make of the car involved. He’s truly that smart.
Chinese Subversion on Full Display in New York
https://www.theepochtimes.com/chinese-subversion-on-full-display-in-new-york_2806434.html
Dave, what’s the move in gold telling you?
Not too much at this point. For the most part, I see gold as the anti US Dollar. Most of the moves in gold are explained by the moves in the US Dollar. But not always. It can also be a fear indicator, a liquidity indicator or track with commodities in general. From a technical point of view, you have to assume its trading within a range until it demonstrates otherwise. So, I wouldn’t be bullish on gold until it breaks $1,400 and holds it. For now, the way I trade, I would view gold as being near the high end of a trading range, so I would actually be selling here and I would only buy back above $1,400. I think there is a good chance it’s going to break that range. If it does, then I think you… Read more »
Thanks for the tip.
Cheers!
No prob. Why did you ask?
Commerzbank came out with a year end report that projected USD/CAD that surprised me. It reads like this:
Date/exchange rate
29.11.2018/1.33
Q1-2019/1.28
Q2-2019/1.26
Q3-2019/1.24
Q4-2019/1.22
Q1-2020/1.20
The starting point, 29.11.2018/1.33 is a highly significant series of esoteric numbers, which caught my eye, and gave the projection a deeper gravitas.
B.C. NDP’s rosy economic outlook starting to look a bit frayed
https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/vaughn-palmer-b-c-ndps-rosy-economic-outlook-starting-to-look-a-bit-frayed
“QT Is Dead, Federal Reserve Buckles, Massive Federal Reserve Balance Sheet The New Normal”, Forbes
“After a year of easing in reverse-QE, or QT as it’s called, the Fed has all but announced it plans to stop soon. The reason is simple: the long-planned balance sheet normalization can’t be done without crashing the world economy.”
“B.C. budget predicts end to real estate correction, increase in revenues”, Globe & Mail
“Notwithstanding those rising projections, the Finance Minister was more cautious in her remarks. She is not convinced the market has hit a stable point, and said that home prices – especially in Metro Vancouver and Victoria – have not come down enough to satisfy her government’s goal of affordability.
“I believe there is more [correction] to go,” she told reporters. “We are seeing things move in the right direction.””
Here we have the definition of cognitive dissonance. The correction will continue, however property tax revenue will continue to rise…. One of these 2 things is actually true.
Those ideas are from two different people. The economists predict sales to rise while the NDP predict prices to fall. Both can be true.
NDP budget summary
Home Owners: Get 10s of thousands in renovation rebates
Luxury Car Owners: Get a $6000 rebate
Money Launderers: Free pass, forecast casino revenue increase over 3 years, plus a 3% increase in RE prices
Home Buyers: Screwed, forecast prices to go up, along with home starts dropping.
Those over 45: Get 80% of new budget spending.
Those under 45: Get the 20% left over of new budget spending.
Renters: Get nothing, no $400 rebate
Anyone wonder why the NDP have no interest in a money laundering public inquiry? It would kill their budget.
Public inquiries are useless unless they’re granted the ability to subpoena people and force testimony. I don’t see a point in calling one unless it has teeth. It’s just going to waste more taxpayer dollars, which are already getting wasted at an alarming rate.
seemed like a whole bunch of backtracking to me. perhaps the lightbulb finally went on and they came to the realization that things not so simple to fix, system is largely rotten to the core and all those everyday British Columbians would be crushed if housing tanks further.
Or perhaps they’ve been misrepresenting their true position all along like every other group of politicians in the history of politics.
I dont think everyday BC’ers will be crushed if housing tanks further. Most “everyday BC’ers” are not max levered up with multiple “investment” properties. They will be fine.
Will suck to look at the “hard fought equity gains” disappear on paper but they will survive.
Speculators – not so much.
I wish I could agree with you but with construction and real estate making up something like 13%+ of our GDP, everyone will be impacted. There’s no turning back.
Yes there will be pain… BUT lets not lose track of the fact that “everyday” British Columbians are NOT the speculators. They will be hurt for sure but not destroyed…
Some will be hurt more than others of course… but for the most part most will muddle through
Correct.
If you have a job in BC, or depend on someone who does, you will be impacted by the implosion of our largest GDP driver.
Recall that housing matters more to BC’s GDP than oil does to Alberta’s.
a prolonged housing crash in BC equates to an economic depression that could last decades. if such a scenario were to unfold, no one wins and everyone pays dearly either directly or indirectly
speculative housing booms are NOT sustainable. You cannot build an economy on selling houses.
Lets get some real jobs here.
like what? maybe vanc turns into one big strip mall and concession stand, but many other sectors of the economy will go belly up if there is a major real estate crash. it is what it is. this is the only game in town if you want to make more than min wage. should there be more of a global recession or worse, it will become even more evident that vanc is really only a 2nd or 3rd rate city at best. just to think that we got so smug and arrogant here in recent years that some actually thought this city was the center of the universe…lol
Yes. I agree. there will be real pain. But pain is unavoidable
I’d suggest that more everyday BC’ers today than at any other point in history own more than one property. It doesn’t require a majority to become a real problem.
the housing market is too big to fail. if prices tank by some 30-50% as some are suggesting, many retirees can kiss their retirement nesteggs away while others spend the next couple of decades trying to get back to even. has anyone asked themselves why the renter’s rebate has been shelved? obviously construction related workers would be devastated, but there are countless business sectors which all feed off each other and would be deeply impacted as well. perhaps the new administration has discovered that the cancer is widespread now and not curable. if the endgame is essentially already set in stone, what is the point of administering multiple rounds of chemo? i get that they thought certain segments of the population needed to be punished, while others needed a helping hand, but that was a flawed strategy from the get-go… Read more »
too big to fail? so the answer to all that ails the economy is more debt to keep on inflating the bubble? or more untaxed foreign money pouring into realestate?
BC will be the first place in the world to just inflate in a straight line all the way to the moon.
At the same the gap between prices and local incomes will remain far out of proportion. And all these locals will just remain here, because of the mountains and the bike lanes…
Yes… I totally see that happening
but many of these locals will be out of work if the $hit hits the fan
“I dont think everyday BC’ers will be crushed if housing tanks further…”
>>> if you conducted a random survey and asked “everyday BC’ers” if initial real estate losses in the order of $250-500k would have a material impact on their financial picture, how do you think most would answer the question.
Paper loss? or real loss?
how would you define a so called paper loss that one can never recoup in their lifetime?
does an owner who tapped into “paper” gains from years gone by, subsequently put that real cash to…ahem…good use, feel real or imaginary pain when the downdraft picks up steam?
would I be out of line to suggest that there might be more than just a few owners out there who have most of their net worth tied up in real estate and that the rising market had both a dramatic effect on their spending patterns in addition to the inevitable boost to one’s ego and sense of self importance? when the pendulum swings back in the opposite direction they’ll all be staring like zombies in the wrong direction when it cracks them on the back of the head.
Im sure there are plenty of owners who tapped the “paper gain ATM machine”.
And anyone who has most of their net worth tied up in a house and adjusts their spending habits based on the increase in equity will have to figure out the hard way that their “hard won equity” is not self liquidating debt…
But wait, I thought all the sales were to rich foreigners?
Nobody ever said “all” the sales, lying pig.
Hey, it’s your year!
Airbnb subpoenaed by New York City for data on listings
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/19/tech/airbnb-subpoena-new-york-city/index.html
‘Let the bloodbath begin’: House prices in Sydney and Melbourne ‘could halve’ in worst crash since 1890s
House prices could fall by more than 40 per cent in the “worst crash since the 1890s depression”, a new report warns. We’re now in stage two of the “bloodbath”.
Vancouver homeowners: this is your inevitable future. You’ve been amply warned.