"My fiancé and I want to move from Europe to Vancouver at the end of the year and then buy a home there at the end of 2011 or 2012. It will depend on house prices and the strength of the pound as we’ll be selling a townhome in London to buy in Vancouver and are praying we can do it without a mortgage."

This exchange between Garth Turner and a prospective Vancouverite contains two embedded anecdotes, and an opinion [greaterfool.ca, 22 May 2010] -

e-mailer: “My fiancé and I want to move from Europe to Vancouver at the end of the year and then buy a home there at the end of 2011 or 2012. It will depend on house prices and the strength of the pound as we’ll be selling a townhome in London to buy in Vancouver and are praying we can do it without a mortgage. What do you think the pound’s chances of returning to pre-2008 levels against the dollar in 2011 or 2012? In the meantime, my brother and his wife recently insisted on buying a house in Vancouver instead of renting and I hope they don’t lose their shirts. They both earn well but have student loans and other debt. I pointed out your blog to my brother but he said “That could never happen in Vancouver”. Hmm, do I hope he’s right?”

Garth Turner: “I’d suggest you move from Europe to, say, anywhere else in Canada. Wait for the Lower Mainland to impode, then consider buying. Hang out in Windsor or Sydney for a year or two, where you can live in a mansion for the price of a 475-square-foot concrete box dangling over Robson Street. You might like being in a place where people actually have a life and don’t talk about their houses all the time.”