Anecdote extracted from Garth Turner’s headline article at greaterfool.ca 10 Apr 2011 - “Sara is 51, lawyer, pushy. Makes $225,000 a year. Husband (about to retire on 24K a year pension), one bratty teenager, two new BMWs, rents a mini-mansion on Vancouver’s hot west side. Plans to buy soon. Assets: a hundred in RSPs (mutual funds) and three hundred in [cash] from the sale of their home. “We save nothing, and we are very risk averse.”
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- payday loans on Peppy Ads – “Buying a Home Is Like A Sport. Meet Your Coach. Win The Real Estate Game.”
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Type of Anecdote
- 01. He Said, She Said (247)
- 02. Profiting from the Boom (441)
- 03. Changed my Life (103)
- 04. Changed my Career (38)
- 05. Where do Buyers get the money? (958)
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- 17. The Froogle Scott Chronicles (27)
- 18. Spot The Speculator (171)
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- 20. The Limitless Demand Argument For Ongoing Market Strength (70)
- 21. Vancouver RE-Verse [Found Poems] (8)
- 22. RE References In Popular Culture (41)
- 23. Jumping The Shark (1)
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- 26. Premature Calls Of "Bottom" (3)
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- 29. Bubblespeak (1)
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Blogroll
- 01 Vancouver Condo Info
- 02 AmericaCanada [retired, no archive]
- 03 Housing Analysis
- 04 RealEstateTalks BC
- 05 Vancouver RE and then some
- 06 Whispers from the Village on the Edge of the Rainforest
- 07 Greater Fool
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Latest Anecdotes:
- Chat Thread
- Taking A Break
- “My best guess: this property is now an ‘investment hold’ and will be built ‘when prices recover’. Good luck on that!”
- Man Loses $745,000 Vancouver Condo Deposit
- Graphic – Degrees of Housing Overvaluation in Canada
- The Rare Individual With A Negative Ownership Premium
- Advice Regarding Renting In Vancouver, Please – “Unfortunately, the Vancouver rental stock is absolutely atrocious. It just seems like every landlord is looking for someone to pay 100% of their mortgage on a crappy place through rental income.”
- “I just visited Manhattan for a week, and happened to snap some real estate ads on both the Upper West and Upper East sides of the island. Compare to Vancouver. It simply doesn’t compute.”
- Ben Rabidoux In Vancouver Next Week
- “The mortgage company told me they were calling in my 40-year, 0-down mortgage. I have paid nearly sixty thousand dollars towards it, but, nearly five years in, I have yet to touch the principal.”
- ‘Vancouver City Hall: Housing Report Card 2012′; Plus Revised Version
- “My folks find themselves at 65 still owing half the value of their home and recreation property to the bank. After almost 30 years of ownership in the BPOE and a number of boom markets, they have very little to show for it.”
- “Rent for $2,200 a month or buy and have a mortgage of $4,310 per month. Why would anyone buy?”
- “They were talking about two couples they knew who had recently bought a lot and planned to each build a house on it and live as neighbours.”
- Greater Vancouver Home Builders’ Association Annual First-Time Buyer Seminar Attendance Plummets
- Mom and Pop Get It Wrong In All Markets, Time And Again
- The average British Columbian homeowner is not going to pay off their mortgage by the time they retire.
- “He’s sold all his properties except his current one, which is now for sale. He explained that the market’s currently in crash mode, worst that he’s ever seen.”
- “One of my old high school buddies finally got her mother to sell the family home in Kitsilano – sold for over $1M, monies realized after debt paid off $185K.”
- “I know someone who just declared bankruptcy because her condo was assessed at $150k and she bought it presale north of $250k in 2005 or 2006.”
- Sturdy, With Views – “Calling Froogle Scott!… Is Dr. Scott ‘In The House’?” [Not In This One, Certainly]
- “She said the market was dead in Victoria and that it would remain so for a very long time. I asked how she knew. Her answer was fascinating and should scare the pants off the real estate crowd.”
- Kits Notes – “I’m pretty sure that this is the first 3+ bedroom property of any type that I’ve seen in the 5 years I’ve lived here that is priced below $700K.”
- “A beautiful Belfast home, in the equivalent of 1st Shaughnessy, bought at their RE peak in 2007 for £3.5 million, has now sold for £800K, almost 80%-off. The market didn’t suffer any significant economic shocks. Rates & unemployment didn’t skyrocket. They didn’t build more land. Sentiment just changed and the prices fell and fell.”
- “Two family members of hers are trapped, underwater, in condos on the East Side.”
- “Interprovincial migration is not saying good things about BC’s economy.”
- Vancouver RE: Not As Expensive Provided You Don’t Think – “It’s clear that our perception of affordability has been coloured by living on a continent where housing is unusually inexpensive.”
- More Undisclosed RE Industry Insiders Publicized As Clients – “In 1995, Allan and Karin Hoegg were mortgage-free. But no more. Today their Vancouver home is a valuable source of income as they plan for full retirement.”
- Rumor that some OV units will be reduced by 20%.
- Downside Weights On The Vancouver RE Market – “One of the older guys (over 60) mention to the guy beside him that he and his wife were thinking about selling their family home, and renting, in order to get some of the money that was locked up in the house.”
- “My buddy was looking to upgrade to a house in the Coquitlam area. With 200k extra for a home, that’s half of lifetime saving between him and his wife.”
- “I was walking in the Fraser neighborhood yesterday, I noticed that the population, on average, seem to be composed of workers. I belong to the top 5 percent in terms of income. Nevertheless, I cannot afford any of the houses for sale in that neighbourhood.”
- “Vancouver is an urban resort whose value mostly resides in its real estate and not much else.”
- “Rogers Communications is expanding into RE; aiming to relaunch website; providing critical data that can help potential buyers assess the value of a property from the comfort of their home computer.”
- I’m only 50 and I can just about retire if I want to, all because of a single simple decision – “When prices rebounded to their former highs, then rocketed another 30% higher to what I considered to be totally unsustainable levels, I decided that only a fool would pass up a second opportunity to harvest such a massive non-taxable capital gain, and in 2011 I sold my place.”
- The Vacant Lot of Versailles, Richmond.
- “I don’t think that most people think things are going to crash, just that there is going to be a slight correction, but it was amazing to me how sentiment has changed, and the fact Vancouver RE is too high was just understood.”
- “The ‘investor’ who purchased our house put it up for sale two months later, in January 1981, but the bubble had burst.”
- For A City To Have That Kind Of Vacancy, It’s Like Cancer – “Downtown, the vacant unit rate is so high that it’s as though there were 35 towers at 20 storeys apiece – all empty.”
- “What’s the worst that can happen? You can’t pay your mortgage, so sell your house! No fear.”
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How can they have only $400k with such income and after selling their house? I thought that real estate is THE path to riches… was I misinformed?
If I was their age and only had $400k, I would be very anxious about my future.
I am pissed that the NDP is pandering to boomers to win this election. There’s no fucking way I am sticking around in this fucking country if I have to pay more in taxes for every fucking boomer’s retirement. Too busy living the “counter culture” life in your youth? You can pay for it by working at home depot in your retirement, assholes.
Similar sentiments here. I am slowly preparing the ground in a new country that has a warmer climate and collapsed real estate prices. There is still a chance that I stay here – if there is a crash before the end of the year and if taxes don’t go up…
Latest stat from States = 1/4 people in the USA have a net worth of ZERO or are underwater.
There’s Risk for you.
So what you’re saying is, our money is welcome, unlike here were it doesn’t buy squat.
It’s amazing how people who consider themselves risk averse are very willing to leverage and purchase one investment (a house or condo).
Morons…
Dear Matt and bubbly,
You want lower taxes? And you think that the U.S. (“warmer climate and collapsed real estate prices”) is your destination? Hey! Go for it ! But p’haps do a bit of due diligence first and you’ll find that: 1) property taxes are at least twice as much as they are here, but without your taxes going to water, schools, garbage (all ‘extra)’ ; 2) decent public schools are non-existent, thanks to anti-tax amendments such as Proposition 13 in California; 3). your medicare expenses are, at a minimum, $15,000. a year for basic services (ie: get cancer and find yourself paying big for all those “extra” lab tests) and 4) you might get shot by an idiot with a legally concealed weapon. So, have fun in the United States of America (or ‘America’ as they like to call themselves). And good luck with that. Oh, and by the way? It was those “boomers” who amassed billions in a surplus and have paid for all the good schools and medical care and universities here that Stupid Harper continues to squander on his corporate croonies, to the tune of a $105 billion debt, which every man, woman and child in Canada will be paying for decades.
I am not moving to US, so your tirade is misdirected. I have already lived in multiple countries, have dual citizenship and can easily compare the “best place on Earth” to other locales. Moving to yet another country, with better quality of life, is not a big deal to me.
I consider all taxes a form of theft, but if I have to pay them, I expect to be at least treated with respect – no homowner-renter segregation, no speculator-entrepreneur segregation (at least not one where the speculator is preferred) no using my taxes and savings to bail out irresponsible idiots, etc. If I can’t have that, I would at least appreciate if the tax burden doesn’t get worse.
The shitty weather is just adding an insult to injury.
As for the Harper vs Ignatieff vs Layton vs … – I will let the sheeple argue about them.
“no homowner-renter segregation, no speculator-entrepreneur segregation (at least not one where the speculator is preferred) no using my taxes and savings to bail out irresponsible idiots, etc.”
so i suppose you’ll be leaving soon, then?
you make a compelling case for me to do the same, actually
Yes, I’ll be leaving relatively soon unless prices start crashing before year end. I still have business commitments here that I don’t want to break, but they will end at some point… Then, I’ll go the way of John Galt.
I encourage others to do the same.
not blaming you – someone i know in your situation has done the same.
seems like if you truly succeed as a professional, and if you are totally honest and above board in this country, you get absolutely raped, while the corporations extract our resources on the cheap, leave us with the environmental degradation and only pay 18% – meanwhile their accountants probably have them closer to 0% than we know – happens all the time in the states.
another someone i know who is reasonably successful mentioned that they paid $80k in tax last year – i can’t even conceive of making $80k let alone having to fork it over and watch it get piddled away on PR campaigns (re: economic action plan, clean air campaign, etc), and renting German Leopard tanks in Afghanistan.
Your parents and our grandparents were responsible for making Canada what it is today while you worthless sacks of self-congratulatory shit were busy smoking weed and making everything post-modern. Or perhaps that was too cruel. It takes some effort and brains to strip natural resources and call it ingenuity and innovation. Contrary to Bubbly I don’t mind paying taxes however I do mind rewarding stupidity and sloth and your fucking generation, if the NDP have their way, will be paid in droves.
it also takes effort and brains to put lipstick on the olympics!
awesome
the trick to living well in the states seems to be
1) be a white republican
2) have a good job with good insurance
3) ???
4) PROFIT
tell us how youreally feel – don’t hold back now – we need you
This is what every single boomer who held up a protest sign deriding the “MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX” or shouted slogans about “FREE LOVE” thinks about Americans. Yeah we get it Vancouver is the best place on earth Americans are Nazis blah blah blah. Lay off the acid grandpa.
50 cents of every tax dollar in the United States of Amurka is spent on ‘defense’
pop quiz: of the remaining 50 cents, what percent goes to servicing the national debt?
in regards to defense spending in the US, the pentagon has learned to ‘hide’ true costs quite well – for instance, i believe that maintaining old nuclear weapons/waste/testing sites (or some such arena) has been dumped on the EPA or BPM.
the reality of the united states is that it is fast moving to becoming a fully militarized totalitarian theocracy – it has no other option, the ‘iron triangle’, the 70,000 companies that receive pentagon contracts each year, is just another example of how socialist the American Economy actually is.
they build so much shit they don’t need it’s not even funny. it’s a tremendous waste.
now, having a nice, prolonged, non-nuclear war with another large state that would give them a run for their money would probably justify all of this, if, y’know, ‘defense’ spending in the US wasn’t the sacred cow that it is and it could actually be discussed, that the last 65 years of american militarization has basically been a $100 trillion piggy bank for a handful of companies and their stakeholders.
and i won’t lay off the acid, thanks.
[IMG]http://i56.tinypic.com/mmsn5z.jpg[/IMG]
Surplus?????????
We have had a national debt of billions for THIRTY YEARS!!!! there is no surplus, not since Pierre Elliot Trudeau!
For three years the feds have brought in more money annually than they spent, but then they promptly spent the extra money.
Surplus! How funny! Typical boomer, getting the finances mixed up in your head.
by surplus i mean YOY
i am aware of the national debt
the national debt is different than the deficit gap
and i’m not a boomer
i’m the very late, youngest child of a couple from the Silent Generation – born during the late interwar period, who were themselves children of parents who lived and strived , survived and succeeded through the great depression.
last year, my grandmother died – aged 103. 103 winters in manitoba.
you hate the boomers because your own life is fucked.
well how do you think it is for my generation? they care more about facebook than their future.
I think we can “hate” boomers because they started the ball rolling on a lifestyle that isn’t sustainable, followed by their kids being raised with a lot of expectations (that were mostly met) and now their kids who think they deserve whatever it is they desire.
But there’s at least three generations worth of blame to go around.
You could live quite well in Costa Rica with a million or so. Medical care is cheap and land has come down in price since the US went bust, and it is quite safe. No army to stage coups but a fairly honest police force. And above all it is warm all year round!
Does anyone in Vancouver fucking work? Why does income never factor into financial decision making?
Save the f bombs in your comments. This joint needs all the help it can get without them. Thx.
Dunno. I think they all work in some kind of facility, but what they are doing I have no idea.
Most people I know are in the tech sector, with small little companies that have clustered around Gastown before it started to gentrify. How many of them will be able to stick around in the long run remains to be seen.
As for the rest? They seem to be involved in real estate in one way or the other. Either as realtor, construction or in an auxiliary industry like home furnishings etc.
If the market here corrects and the money goes away there will be a lot of pain beyond the immediately visible.
- Restaurants and bars
- Design / Furnishing stores
- “luxury” retailers / dealers
- Condo Coops / Managment companies
the list could probably go on for a while.
The only thing longterm viable in this town is probably the port and how well that will play out remains to be seen, if China craters then the need for raw materials will disappear quite quickly which could mean a lot of hardship for people who are connected to the port.
Having said all that: In the long run Vancouver will still be viable, but not to the extend that most cheerleaders seem to think, unless there is some serious investment in additional industries that actually produce something of value.
this is what i don’t get,
why do the mainlanders choose here, and not Costa Rica? it’s as a stable a place as any – it has to be, that’s where the coke shipments stop for fuel.
From hearing people talk? Family.
Personally? I like cooler climates better than hotter ones. My “dream home” was never on a beach in the Caribbean.