Local speculators have driven the housing bubble in Vancouver. This from ‘Lardy Boy’ at Mohican’s Langley Financial Planning Blog May 02, 2008, 8:56 PM -
“I was at the Real Estate Forum in Vancouver this week. This is the big event of the year for the real estate industry, with all the big players in the development industry in attendance. It was a decidely gloomy affair, by its normally upbeat confident standards (in recent years at least), with comments from some of the more candid major players, about the market( both commercial and residential) having ground to a halt over the last 60 days. Reasons identified, were the tightening of lending practices to both developers and consumers, and a change in market psychology. I heard an interesting comment from a major residential developer (Bosa) that they had totally underestimated the number of speculators who had purchased into their condo developments. The true number, which was shocking, was only evident following completion of the buildings. To use their words “the elevators were hardly being used”.”
