thinktom (a Vancouver realtor) at RE Talks 7 Jan 2011 4:33pm -
“I’ve got a million [regrets about the RE market]. I remember in 2000/2001 watching the market start to move.
I went to see Ozzy Jurock speak in 2001. He said if anyone has balls, they’ll buy 5 condos right now and they’ll be rich in a few years.
I didn’t buy 5. But I bought 1.
My mother and I purchased at 1277 Nelson for $158k a year later I think. Concrete 1 bed w views. Rented it out furnished for a few years and did well. I loved that building and watched 2 beds go for $250k. I shoulda’ bought every unit in the place as they came up.
I know a house near Commercial/12th. Got pulled off the market and sold privately….. for $225k.
I bought a house at Fraser/23rd for $389k. Sold for $815k. I should have bought 5.
I sold some clients in SOMA Lofts. The D plan was a one bed plus den but I told my clients they could easily turn the den into another bedroom. They made a killing. 2 of those D plans sat on the market for a long time. The TH’s were also $315 and wouldn’t sell. *sniff* *sob*
West end was giving away condos for years. SO close to the beach and yet the prices were lower than almost any city in the world with that kind of location.
But even in 2003, people were talking ‘bubble’. I had a client that sold his East Van house for $289k due to ‘the bubble’. He stubbornly refused to ever buy back in as well, convinced it was still coming. Maybe it is???
I never should have sold anything I’ve ever bought and should been renting ‘em all ever since.
I prefer to think about how fortunate many have been to have been involved in RE in the last decade. I mean everyone, not just the realtors. I’m talking builders, plumbers, electricians, mortgage brokers, inspectors, etc… you name it. Not a bad gig and many people/families have enjoyed good employment.
Of course, hindsight is 20/20 for all this stuff. I remember the Google IPO. I thought ‘I’ll drop $10-15k. What the hell I thought. I really like google and use it all the time’ My financial advisor (a serious pro) thought it was overvalued at $105. So I didn’t *sob*”
Comment:
1. Yes, hindsight is 20:20. The past is the past. You could make an infinitely long list of prior investments/speculations that we can now see would have done well. Look at a long term chart of any market whatsoever and they leap out at you. ‘Regrets’ don’t really mean much.
2. The ‘gig’ that employed and enriched a minority sector of our society has been based on the spending into the economy of vast, vast amounts of borrowed money. It has been the result of a debt fueled binge. We have not yet begun to really pay for this artificial boom.
-vreaa
Keep in mind that in 2001, he probably *couldn’t* have bought many apartments, due to the high down-payment requirements (normal? responsible? The bubble’s bruised my brain!) in place at the time. Now anybody who can fog a mirror can get a mortgage, provided you can convince banker that your income and a tenant can collectively pay the monthly “emergency” interest rates that are being charged.
Yes, many have enjoyed a decade of good jobs, and some have lived the good life on their speculatory profits. Its like when wild birds get fed regularly for ten years at the feeder, and never have to find “real” food. Guess what happens when the nice old lady that was feeding them dies….
Funny that this guy compares Vancouver RE to Google… Google has continued to produce more earnings to justify their price (P/E is about 25, which is HIGH, but not that high for a growth stock).
The rents you get on Vancouver properties (i.e. the “earnings”) have not increased at a rate even close to the price of the homes. That $158k condo probably rented for $800 in 2003, and probably rents for $900 now.
In Toronto, I know that there are buildings that haven’t raised rents in 10-15 years! (and not just because of the provincial rules on maximum annual rent increases, since virtually all units would have turned over several tenants in that time). A building that I lived in way back in 2000 still posts a sign outside/online for the same rent.
Excellent point re Google having a better yield than Vancouver RE.
Why do you have regret??? it’s not too late, you can go ahead and buy 5 to 10 small condo at 600K now and they will all be worth 1.2 mil in 5 years.
Buy buy buy… Real Estate never go down
And what about the unfortunate fucks who have to pay for it all? Can 30 year olds buy a house today, raise a family, and expect to retire? Or do you need an income in the top 15%? What about future taxes? Pulling all this development forward has goosed revenues at all levels of government, yet we have record deficits today. What about retirement? Most Baby Boomers have negligible savings. CPP and OAS don’t cover the cost of living. What about pensions? Super low interest rates make them insolvent.
Quite frankly, we are living in a fantasy world. And we are still running up the bill! I’d like to see how we are going to pay for things, because right now I see very little ability to pay. It is looking like denial and default. And the question is, who will be defaulted on?
Great stuff as always, VREAA!
I’d give it all for just a bit more. Actually, a lot more. That’s not a regret. Fucking greedhead scumbag realwhore, I hope you go bankrupt.
Dude, stop finding reasons to regret making money. You are, so so so, never going to be happy otherwise.
Sounds exactly what my mates were saying back in Ireland a few years before the crash, “I should have bought 5 houses”. Lots of people got burned buying real estate in the hopes they’d make a killing, now the bank owns the bad debts and we all know the story.
Did you see the Vancouver Sun piece about what a million dollars buys in Vancouver versus in Newfoundland? If anyone has a spare million lying around, why not buy 34 houses in Newfoundland…maybe they’ll be worth a million each one day!
http://www.vancouverpropertynews.com/a-million-dollar-home-in-vancouver/31/
So in 2001 he went to hear Jurock speak.
Was Jurock just pumping like always, similar to what we are hearing constantly from MSM nowadays?
Or did he know about the coming relax of mortgage rules and regulations.
Maybe he was expecting a bubble, although he would never admit we are ever in one.
If he were basing his predictions on the previous 10 years before 2001, how can he come to the conclusion things would have gone to where they have since the decade before had no gains close to what we are seeing since then.
No one doubts in hindsight his predictions are dead on. But how did he know?
He feels fortunate for the industry that has given a lot of friends and family employment and made some good money.
Later I hope he feels responsible for all the loss of jobs, destroying the middle class, and making homes further from reach then if this all never happened.
rp1-You’re totally right. For every person who has cashed out and made a fortune on real estate, there’s a sucker who bought into the whole thing, likely with some unsustainable mortgage that may very well end up in the hands of the CMHC, and therefore us, the taxpayer. For society as a whole, high real estate prices, and high debt are a very bad thing.
“I never should have sold anything I’ve ever bought and should been renting ‘em all ever since.”
Your gains aren’t really gains until you sell. By 2006, a lot of people in Las Vegas thought they’d made incredible gains in their wealth. Turns out basically all of those gains are gone now.
The true geniuses of Vancouver RE will be those who sell within 18 or 24 months of the top and start renting. You’ll see after the bubble that the people who had the foresight and cojones to actually do that are few and far between.
The rest of the “wealth” will be gone. The total Vancouver RE assets that are now “worth” X hundreds of billions will suddenly be worth half that. Poof! No one puts that in their pocket. It’s just gone. But the mortgage isn’t.
A lot of people are making transactional money in various RE businesses right now while the party is still going. I won’t argue with that. But they’re probably sinking at least half of it back into the very asset which will be tanking at the same time they are losing their jobs. I just hope they are investing the other half wisely.
If some guy bought 10 properties in 2001 and rented them out, he’d be making a small fortune in rent alone, let alone the large fortune he’d get if he sold them all, if he even wants to bother.
Jurock was right about buying in 2001 and looking at the returns given the prices and rents at that time, there is good reason to give him credit on this. And to be completely fair, he’s a lot less sanguine about buying in many markets today and hasn’t been for some time.
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