Hovering at greaterfool.ca 2 July 2011 8:10pm -
“I’m seeing a lot of tear down/rebuild/flip in Kitsilano (Vancouver). Nothing new there.. always a pretty common sight.
But lately I’ve noticed a clear increase in volume and drastic decrease in the quality of the tear down / rebuild crews.
Where once it was rented fences, strewn with advertising for Builder X and Plumber Y. Now it seems it’s Bob and his cousin (and their friend who has a pickup truck). No scaffolding because 2×4′s and a prayer will do.
Who would be dumb enough to buy a house built by these maroons?”
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Most Recent Comments:
- jesse on Even More Bubble Warnings And Mentions In The Mainstream Media. A Whole Flurry, In Fact.
- Sticky Priced Seller Shoots Self In Foot, Slowly – “$488K, listed for 13 months, negative cash flow, unable to come down in price at all due to “circumstances”.” | Vancouver Real Estate Anecdote Archive on Vancouver’s Too Expensive For Entrepreneurs – “Last night during a meeting we realized that of five, only two of us aren’t thinking about leaving the city in the next year or two.”
- Ralph Cramdown on Even More Bubble Warnings And Mentions In The Mainstream Media. A Whole Flurry, In Fact.
- vreaa on Even More Bubble Warnings And Mentions In The Mainstream Media. A Whole Flurry, In Fact.
- vreaa on Even More Bubble Warnings And Mentions In The Mainstream Media. A Whole Flurry, In Fact.
- debtless on Even More Bubble Warnings And Mentions In The Mainstream Media. A Whole Flurry, In Fact.
- vreaa on Even More Bubble Warnings And Mentions In The Mainstream Media. A Whole Flurry, In Fact.
- Canis on West-Side Detached Specifics – “The cycle of buy / tear-down / build / sell is not completing. There are really no sales of new-builds.”
- Farmer on Even More Bubble Warnings And Mentions In The Mainstream Media. A Whole Flurry, In Fact.
- loon on Even More Bubble Warnings And Mentions In The Mainstream Media. A Whole Flurry, In Fact.
- formula1 on Even More Bubble Warnings And Mentions In The Mainstream Media. A Whole Flurry, In Fact.
- Farmer on Even More Bubble Warnings And Mentions In The Mainstream Media. A Whole Flurry, In Fact.
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Latest Anecdotes:
- Sticky Priced Seller Shoots Self In Foot, Slowly – “$488K, listed for 13 months, negative cash flow, unable to come down in price at all due to “circumstances”.”
- Even More Bubble Warnings And Mentions In The Mainstream Media. A Whole Flurry, In Fact.
- West-Side Detached Specifics – “The cycle of buy / tear-down / build / sell is not completing. There are really no sales of new-builds.”
- Vancouver ‘Hotel Condo’ Prices Plummet
- “Crazy Land” – 9% of the working population employed in construction.
- Vancouver’s Too Expensive For Entrepreneurs – “Last night during a meeting we realized that of five, only two of us aren’t thinking about leaving the city in the next year or two.”
- BC Budget: Taxpayer Debt To Support The Construction Industry – “Every young person out there today understands the challenges of getting into the housing market.”
- “Many of my boomer contemporaries think they will “live off the real estate equity” forever.”
- Vancouver – “Where my friends/mom/society/tourists think I live; Where I actually live.”
- Ben Rabidoux, ‘Where We Stand’ – “While it may be too early to call a definitive peak in Vancouver, things aren’t looking good.”
- “I am amazed financial gurus seldom suggest buying a second property. We live in a real estate hot spot. If you buy a house or condo with 25% down and it appreciates by 25%, you have doubled your money.”
- “Comparing Vancouver to NY is about the most preposterous claim I have heard in this lifetime and the next.”
- “I know a lady who spent more time haggling over the price of a table and chairs that was on sale at the Brick than she did buying her condo.”
- Discussion with Tom Davidoff – “A huge fraction of near retirement Vancouverites must have 75%+ of their wealth in home equity.”
- Tom Davidoff’s ‘Fantastic, Pragmatic Lecture’ – “Vancouver RE price future is uncertain, with clear downside risk. Prices could, absolutely, fall 50%. But long run growth is easy to envision, and Vancouver will never be cheap.”
- PostCardsFromTheBlastRadius #15 (2012Teaser) – “Oki CourtOrdereds… LookLikeThis…”
- “You’ve Got A Bubble, Canada” Article #47 – Bloomberg – “Canada Housing Poised for ‘Severe’ Drop”
- What happens to vocal housing bulls after a RE bubble pops?
- Kelowna Foreclosures – “Realtor is worried the number of foreclosures will bring the overall market down, hurting anyone who wants to sell their home; now up against something they didn’t see coming.”
- Buy The Dip! – “There’s yet more indication investors are finally getting the break they need to beef up their portfolios, with the B.C. Realtor association confirming a near-8 per cent dip in the value of properties sold during the first month of the year.”
- ‘The Economist’ Poll – “Are Canadian house prices a bubble waiting to burst?”
- “At coffee break today a guy was reading an ad for one of the housing lotteries. We all looked at the choices (a few houses, condo in North Van, or $1.8M cash). Not a single person would take the cash. Most agreed housing would go up.”
- “I’m ecstatic. My boomer parents called today to say they’ve finally sold our long-time house in cow town. Assessed $490k, listed last fall at $560k, no bite; re-listed at $490k last week, sold at $480k.”
- Open House Investigative Reporting – “He said he considered buying this for the lot value, because lot prices are still going up. However, he also said that he noticed many new/newer houses are not selling at all. This confuses him.”
- ‘The Most Overpriced Housing Market In The Developed World’
- Mayor’s ‘Housing Affordability Task Force’ – “Vancouver must be a city where our children can afford to live and raise their families.”
- “The house and lane house were empty and converted into 7 or 8 suites between the two. The owner couldn’t meet me on time as he was showing one of his other six properties.”
- Tsur Sommerville, Time Machine – “Let’s not let the housing market be driven by a wave of cheap and easy-to-access money.”
- Vancouver Realtor Pam Allen – “Since October, it was like someone turned off the tap. It became absolutely dead.”
- “I’m a Realtor and it’s not a buyers market at all. Based on Vancouver’s historic benchmark price chart I would be hitting the sell button asap.”
- “When I asked why the owner is selling, the realtor said the owner “Has too many properties, wants to get rid of some”…”
- “My wife and I could never buy into a life of servitude to a bank. We just aren’t built to borrow money and don’t consider life as a one track job in order to buy a building.”
- Philadelphia Church of God Trumpets: “Falling house prices is an idea that many Canadians laugh at. Americans laughed too before America’s bubble burst.”
- Avoiding Vancouver, Recent Stories
- “She tells me that she isn’t worried because the prices cannot drop below what she paid.”
- Maclean’s Interviews Two Vancouver Realtors – “Remember: in real estate, people who don’t track the short-term ups and downs tend to do great over the long-run.”
- Canadian Business Housing “Crash!” Cover
- RE Bubble Cone of Silence? – “I recently spoke to a guy fresh out of MBA school and planning to get into the housing market. He had said I was the first to voice any concerns about the RE market to him. He was of the opinion that RE only goes up.”
- Seller ‘Freedom’ Care Of Buyer – “My friend bought a Kits bung in 2002 for $578,000. Listed it this week, one showing on Tuesday for 1.5 hours, closed the deal today for $1,975,000.”
- “There’s a guy in my office who inherited his mother’s 90 year old house on the west side of Vancouver. He listed it last week for over 2.5 million and got an offer at his asking price, but he turned it down.”
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- Sticky Priced Seller Shoots Self In Foot, Slowly - "$488K, listed for 13 months, negative cash flow, unable to come … http://t.co/XtbXD7Ft 23 minutes ago
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I dunno, the numbers say there were more maroons employed in 2008 than today.
dr. huxtable and i walked by a site the other day that had 15 chinese workers sitting on the steps eating noodles, fwiw.
People who didn’t see the construction process and is awed by the exterior finish?
yes, stucco is a great finish for a home in (what’s left of) a boreal rainforest
but some people have never seen a jungle before, so..
“Who would be dumb enough to buy a house built by these maroons?””
someone who is not here for the long haul. some people are cheap,.. cheap, cheap, cheap. “One dollar store house pls.”
I went in to an open house on a new build built by “Golden Fortune” – well the price was! 4.5 mill on the westside on a 50 ft lot in the middle of the street. To be honest, most of the finishes looked like stuff from home depot. Some of the tile was high end, but the floors, carpets, lights seemed cheap for the price of the house. Actually I would be more worried about all the new developments in langley, Surrey etc – make sure you have a warranty that covers water damage leaks etc.
The house next door to ours (on West 21st) was constructed by casual labourers that were trucked in daily from Surrey – not much English between them but they did anything required, including discovering an old oil tank and disguising it in a pile of debris to be hauled off. After the house was finished but before curtains were up we glanced in the front window from the sidewalk and noticed a veritable waterfall cascading out of the ceiling fixture. We called the real estate agent listed on the sign out front and hours later someone came to look at it. The never used plumbing in the bathroom had exploded. The water was cleaned up and the plumbing fixed but the wiring, light fixtures, hard wood floors were just left to dry out. Shortly after that the three stairs leading to the front porch came separated at the porch because no rebar had been used to tie in the stairs. That little faux pas was tiled over. The house is for sale for $2.7M at the moment.
Just like in the construction trades, there is also a dearth of English speakers on these forums. Maroon is a shade of redish brown. Moron.
from the urban dictionary:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=maroon
1. maroon 301 up, 73 down
A term of derision often uttered by Bugs Bunny when referring to an interaction with a dopey adversary. It is a mispronunciation of the word “Moron”
“What a Maroon!” “Will ya get a load of this maroon”
dumbass
i really enjoyed smacking you down with a cartoon from the 40s – would you like some more?
You were around in the 40s and yet you still watch bugs bunny? What are you, a 70 year old pedofile?
and you’re saying people can’t spell
Maroon is in very common usage. You need to get out more.
Do you want a life full of unexpected surprises?
Buy anything built in Calgary between 2006 and 2008.