Tag Archives: bc

BC, hype, supply

FREE BEER!

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71 Comments

All over BC the decline in real estate is in full swing. When you’ve got more sellers than buyers it takes a little extra to stand out.

And when that extra is FREE BEER! it does stand out.

Allen has had his three bedroom condo on the market for just over a month and says only two prospective buyers have stopped in.

“I have two houses, one in Kelowna and one in Kamloops and I just can’t afford to keep both going.”

The condo located on Springview place in Kamloops, was being rented, but after the tenants moved out and the house went on the market, Allen knew he had to be creative or he could be stuck paying two mortgages.

“I was sitting around thinking, this house is a real pain, it’s not getting nearly as many views as I would like. How am I going to attract people to this house? Well I was drinking a beer at the time and I thought why not just give away beer for a year.”

Allen hopes the free beer initiative will be the final push to get people thinking about buying.

“This place is geared towards students, and that is who I am marketing with this campaign of free beer for a year.”

Here’s the full article.

Open Topic

Friday Free-for-all!

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206 Comments

It’s that time of the week again! Friday is here and the weekend draws nigh!

So lets do 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:

–19,000 Listings Party!
–Vancouver home sales hit 10 year low
–Updated inventory graph, next leg up!
–OSFI Relent on tougher rules
–Your own private BC island?
–Investors shy away from Genworth
–US prices down 42% from peak?
–Sales great in interior says BCREA
–The moving-to-America experiment
–Boomers double-down on real estate
–Canadas mobility problem
–VCI comment signal to noise graph

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

Also! For a short time we tried opening up registration on the VancouverPeak forums, but were immediately inundated with spam registrations. So we’re back to invite only for now. There are ten invite codes at the end of this post if you’re interested in registering for an account there. The main advantages of a VancouverPeak account are that you can upload images, xls files, etc to share data or analysis.

Here are those codes, you can use them at this registration link, first come first served.

Used codes removed and replaced with fresh codes Saturday Morning 9:19 am:

796p-nb1r-p48n
9n3p-f5od-5xg3
cnfn-xwc1-a1ap
nabi-g5uv-4ouk
fmtk-z3xg-1ifx
zoct-oubu-2cnh
mys4-b2cs-20rx
w8pe-g78i-g3c8
ozgp-gf0g-3ck1
vfsn-vnl9-6wax
BC, economy, prices

Whistlers nasty collapse

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117 Comments

They say bubbles inflate from the center, working their way out to peripheral areas. They then tend to collapse in reverse with outlying areas crashing first as the equity vacuum works its way back to the center.

Right now Vancouver is seeing unseasonably high listings and lower than normal sales. Prices are softening, but there’s no dramatic crash yet.

Meanwhile Vancouver Island, The Sunshine Coast and the BC interior are all seeing dramatic price drops.

Just north of us you’ll find Whistler BC, the ski resort where prices just keep on melting. The Village Whisperer points out this 65% asking price drop since 2005.

On a similar note Makaya pointed out this delightful instance of Whistler bottom-calling in 2010. The supposition was that since prices had been dropping, they wouldn’t any more.

For people expecting the real estate prices in Whistler to drop after the Olympics, I’m afraid you’re going to be sorely disappointed.
According to George Klimock from The Whistler Real Estate Company, property prices in Whistler today are already 15-25% lower than previous prices in 2007. In fact, current prices in Whistler are down to 2001 levels.
With a high level of inquiries and good prices, Whistler is considered to good value in the resort market, with, for example, a 2 bedroom condo is now listed at $ 519,000 as opposed to the more expensive $ 630,000 a few years earlier.

Meanwhile prices just keep sliding down the mountain..

UPDATE: The whistler bottom-calling article linked above is not currently working. Ant saved a copy of it here on Vancouver Peak.

BC, economy, opinion, prices

Brand new house $130k

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111 Comments

What’s this, builders making a profit on new houses at $130k?

Apparently only in Vegas.

Yes, after a 60% drop in house prices builders are somehow still in business making new homes and selling them for under $200k.

“The single largest impact has been houses under $200,000,” Beville said. “Homes in the $130,000 to $190,000 (range) are getting a lot of love. The ones in the $200,000 to $300,000 are getting a little bit less.

Meanwhile in Vancouver even if you get the land for free it’ll cost you $270k to build a 500 sq foot laneway home.

Construction cost is high in Vancouver for a few reasons: permits, cost of materials, cost of labour.. but there’s really only one reason construction cost is so high: people are willing to pay for it.

It’s not like construction quality here is known for it’s quality (leaky condo crisis) and we even make use of unpaid illegal immigrant labour and still we pay these prices?

Ridiculous.

BC, economy, Open Topic, pictures

Greetings from Ground Zero

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65 Comments

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):

log house
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:

sasquatch

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?