Vancouver Condo Info

A new report issued by US ratings agency Fitch says that fast-rising home prices and record levels of household debt pose a threat to the credit portfolios of Canadian banks.

The agency examined the exposure of Canada’s six largest banks to mortgage risk and found that household debt fuelled by mortgage credit expansion in Canada is the largest threat to credit profiles.

“These are quite high levels of debt for households and the movement in house prices, we don’t think this is sustainable in the long term,” said report author Fabrice Toka, senior director at Fitch.

The six banks have a combined $730-billion in mortgage exposure and an additional $182-billion in home equity loan exposure, the report noted.

High unemployment or interest rate shock “could aversely affect the ability of leveraged homeowners to meet their mortgage obligations,” the report said.

The risk testing scenario looked at drops of 1 to 10% and sees CIBC and RBC as the most exposed to mortgage value risks. The debt-to-income ratio in Canada is currently higher than it was in pre-recession US, but Fitch points out that there are structural differences in our housing market.

Here’s the full article in the Financial Post.

This post was submitted by rj.

Hi gang, I’m back for a tour of the BPOE. Driving though Greenwood, BC (population 600, 30 listings) I noticed a For Sale sign in front of this house. This very same house was on sale for about $435K around 2007 as I noted in this forum (or Vance’s, can’t remember):

For Sale: $239,900
1897 Heritage home! If only the walls could talk! Original RCMP headquarters and definitely has B&B potential. 4 BDRMS, 2 baths. Modern renovated kitchen wit all amenities-stainless steel appliances & cord flooring. This home has so much to offer that you must see it!

Listing

Now do you remember back in the days when you talked about those ridiculous prices along Highway 3, you were granted with chants of “BC Bud!” (interior HAM)? What happened? Did everyone stop smoking? Well maybe all the RE buyers stopped smoking!

However maybe the RE industry is using stronger stuff, because a bit further west on Highway 3 I saw the following:

Regal Ridge

It reminded me of one of those ghost developments in Florida, apart from the elevation and weather. A great expanse of local streets (each with its own theme statue) and the odd house here and there.

Now that prices are cratering in the nearby Okanagan Valley, where they have things like shopping and hospitals and mild weather, who’s going to buy up there?

This post was submitted by patriotz.

Yeah, that’s right. It’s the end of the week and that means it’s time for our regular end of the week news round-up and open topic discussion thread. Here are few recent links to kick off the chat, the first one see’s our very own Vancouver Real Estate Roller Coaster show up on the evening news:

-No Bubble in Vancouver (video)
-Inventory now under 10 year record
-Average house prices for the last year
-What housing bubble?
-Vancouver drags Canadian real estate
-Canadian banks not immune to bubble
-Half of Canada to retire with mortgage
-CMHC insurance protects the lender
-‘Condo king’ says bubble talk just hot air
-‘Condo king’ on BC housing commission
-Does Canada have ‘Dutch Disease’?
-Professional women go it alone
-Instant house
-Real estate crash in China underway
-VCI now on Twitter
-

So what are you seeing out there? Post your news links, thoughts and anecdotes here and have an excellent weekend!

Yeah, it’s the weekend!  That means it’s time for our regular end of the week news round-up and open topic discussion thread, here are a few recent links to kick off the chat:

-18k Inventory party!
-Updated inventory graph
-Taxpayers victims of ‘hot money’
-Welcome to Effluent Richmond
-1 month later Telus still not sold out
-special offer, $510,000 off
-CMHC dismisses bubble talk
-The CMHC board of directors
-Silver linings of slow growth economy
-Condo craze gets crazier
-Wolverine moves down under
-Huge drop in Chinese immigrants
-Building permits rise, just not here
-Pastrick thinks prices might fall
-Buying with 5% down?
-Time to cash out?
-Condo owner, why so glum?
-

So what are you seeing out there?  Post your news links, thoughts and anecdotes here and have an excellent weekend!

It’s the end of another week and that means it’s time for the free-for-all, or regular end of the week news round-up and open topic discussion thread. Here are a few recent links to kick off the chat:

-Vancouver housing slows to crawl
-Telus Garden sold out?
-Maybe not so sold out. 
-Inventory growth slows (chart)
-Metro van sees sharp sales drop
-REBGV Press Release (PDF)
-Agent grumpy about bubble talk
-Housing bubble sentiment chart
-1980′s all over again?
-Senators grumpy with Carney
-Housing market pumps GDP
-Australia down 10%
-China’s ‘epic’ property bubble

So what are you seeing out there?  Post your news links, thoughts and anecdotes here and have an excellent weekend!

Yes, you heard that correctly.

The word “bubble” was used in a discussion on a national news broadcast.

The CBC discusses the Canadian housing bubble with four economists and gets a fairly unanimous agreement: The Canadian housing market is overpriced and bubbly in many areas.

video embedded below:

This post was submitted by specuskeptic.

It’s that time of the week again, let’s do our regular end of the week news roundup and open topic discussion thread!  Here are a few recent links to kick off the chat:

-Van prices fall for 5th month
-Bubble popping changes?
-CMHC now handled by OSFI
-RBC: Van Vulnerable to correction
-Vancouver Price Drop Champs
-Vancouver Inventory Chart
-Lending change will cause…?
-BC Population growth stats
-Mark Carney still fretting
-Van top 4th hated city?
-More than 1 mil US underwater
-Former bears call US bottom
-Chinas impending crash

So what are you seeing out there?  Post your news links, thoughts and anecdotes here and have an excellent weekend!

GVREB has been issuing month-end press releases in the style of the REBGV using entirely factual data and anecdotes, but without the same spin.  You’ll find last months press release here.  

As we near the end of the month the GVREB team is looking for information to be included in the press release for April.  Here’s their message:

April is almost over. As the GVREB will release the monthly stats promptly on May 1, we are seeking industry insiders to give factual and unbiased stories of the market.

You will not be named and you don’t have to identify yourself. The release is not intended to be biased but to state the facts. In order for this to continue to be more useful to the public than the biased release from REBGV (they are not to be confused with GVREB) we need to have these stories.

I would prefer these to come directly from people in the industry with real stories. The most important is to say what they see is changing. It is the changes that are interesting.

Preferred industries are:

1.) Mortgage Brokers
2.) Bank Mortgage loan officers / credit risk managers
3.) Real estate agents (your factual and unbiased opinions are helpful).
4.) Builders of single family homes (professional or one-off amateurs)
5.) Condo project mass marketing agents (standard or groupon model acceptable)
6.) Helicopter Pilots (preferred if colour is yellow).

Press release will be completed on Sunday night so please send your stories as soon as possible so they can be vetted for truth.

contact is

gvreb1 – at – gmail – dot – com

An Observer has started up a new Vancouver RE blog focused specifically on tracking price drops!

Right now at vancouverpricedrop you’ll find number of asking price drops by area and a ‘top eleven’ list of price drops in the Vancouver and Fraser Valley region.

These drops are all over the map, some have dropped asking price by a million and are still a million over assesment.  There are a couple that seem serious though with new asking prices several hundred thousand dollars under assessed value.

It’s fantastic to see a new addition to the Vancouver bubble blog crowd, especially one that is focused on specific data.  Looking forward to watching this one in the future!

Here’s that link again: vancouverpricedrop.wordpress.com

Another great post by Piggington. Apply it to you know where.

The bubble beneficiary sectors, so named because they grew like weeds as a result of the housing boom, are: construction, finance (which includes real estate transactions), and retail (not directly related to housing like the other two, but a bubble beneficiary nonetheless as a result of vigorous home equity-financed consumer spending). In the graphs below, I have grouped these three sectors together as the “Housing Bubble Sectors” and charted the change in their size alongside that of the non-bubble private sector industries and government.

Those excess jobs are gone for good, now that the bubble is no longer with us. They never should have existed to begin with. We would have been far better off if all the labor and resources that were squandered on the housing bubble were instead put to uses that could have generated a sustainable increase in society’s long-term prosperity. As a bonus, we would have avoided a big crash, too.

Why Bubbles are Bad

Of course, virtually ALL of the employment growth in Canada since the 2008 recession has been in the bubble beneficiary sectors.

This post was submitted by patriotz.