Stephen Quinn, host of On the Coast on CBC Radio One, Vancouver, in ‘Glad you asked: pithy responses to [Vancouver] visitors’ FAQ’ Globe & Mail 28 Jan 2011 -
“[Vancouver RE] is expensive. The average price of a bungalow in the city is $890,000.
The cost of housing remains high because the Vancouver real-estate market is a pyramid scheme teetering atop a cloud of ephemeral hope and, simultaneously, eternal fear. If a single homeowner begins to doubt the prudence of their investment, the pyramid will collapse. Which is why there is a bylaw prohibiting homeowners from ever expressing out loud regret for their real-estate purchase. Regardless of how leaky it may be.”
This humorous piece taps the author’s unconscious and delivers up a perfect description of the Vancouver RE bubble. The reader comments on the piece are equally telling, most found the observations ‘lame’. As one dissenting commenter noted: ‘sometimes the truth hurts’. -vreaa
One aspect of the bubble in the US is that by the last year or two, everyone seemed to know it was a bubble. There were commentators and articles who would speak this horrible truth, but the average person wouldn’t say it out loud, they would rationalize until blue in the face. But they knew on some level.
Even those last people desperate to get in on the action, or flip that last house, most likely knew, but thought they still had time to profit before prices started to fall. “And how far can they really fall anyway?”