“I was at the live Wiggles show the other day. The main Wiggles guy asked the kids and the crowd to name one thing/something special and unique about Vancouver.
Awkward confused look on people’s faces.
Someone said “maple syrup”..or “sushi”(??)…until everyone seemed to agree on “Olympics”
Come to think of it, I cannot think of anything either..”
- Get Real at greaterfool.ca 11 Aug 2011 11:12pm
–
Damn! This would have been the cutest story if one of the kids had called out something about the housing market. – vreaa
–
On that note, this extract from ‘Summer Fun For Boys’, by Tim Long, New Yorker, 1 Aug 2011:
“At the beach, build the biggest sandcastle anyone’s ever seen. Pretend that it’s 2005, and take out a huge, adjustable-rate mortgage on the sandcastle which you can’t really afford. Throw lavish sandcastle parties for seashells, rocks, plastic shovels, and candy wrappers. When the bank comes to foreclose on your castle, run and find your dad. Try not to look surprised when you discover him sitting with a lady in a green swimsuit. Her name is Terri. While shaking Terri’s hand, ask her for a seven-hundred-thousand-dollar loan to cover your sandcastle debts.”
Most Recent Comments:
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- Hymie Garshman on Taking A Break
- cash loans on South Granville SFH Example – Price Rise Of 120% In Two Years
- paydayloansyeehaw on Erroneous Theories For Falling Prices #5 – Tightening Of Mortgage Rules Caused The Crash
- payday loans on Peppy Ads – “Buying a Home Is Like A Sport. Meet Your Coach. Win The Real Estate Game.”
- Nemesis on Chat Thread
- Hymie Garshman on Taking A Break
- Nemesis on Chat Thread
- Nemesis on Chat Thread
- Nemesis on Chat Thread
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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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- 11. Regrets about Investing in RE (417)
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- 16. Missed The Boat? (236)
- 17. The Froogle Scott Chronicles (27)
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- 19. BlastRadiusPostCards (17)
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- 21. Vancouver RE-Verse [Found Poems] (8)
- 22. RE References In Popular Culture (41)
- 23. Jumping The Shark (1)
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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
- 08 Canada Bubble
- 09 Rob Chipman's blog
- 10 YatterMatters
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- 12 vancouver (un)real estate
- 13 Agent Will's Stats [retired]
- 14 Landlord Rescue
- 15 The Economic Analyst
- 16 Canadian Housing Price Charts
- 17 Hoodsurf [retired Jun 2011]
- 18 World Housing Bubble
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- 20 North American Economics
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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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Seawalls. Lots and lots of seawalls.
Yesterday was not an unpleasant day. Best, if you’re up before noon there aren’t that many people around unless it’s the Sun Run.
My wife was at one of the Wiggles shows – she says a kid yelled out “rain” in response.
Wiggle: what is special about Vancouver?
Kids (shouting in unison): EVERYBODY WANTS TO LIVE HERE!!
Wiggle: yes that’s right, and do you know why?
Kids: IT’S THE BEST PLACE ON EARTH!!!
Just saw this on TV – Point Grey fixer upper: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-J9kNWZMuA
VREAA should start collecting stories what people comment in the toilets too.
For a good time call Rusty.
Given the mental saturation acheived by the Vancouver market, we’d fully expect a fair amount of “what people comment in the toilets” (!!?) to involve real estate. What else is there to talk about?
How great the sailing this morning was and what mountain they intend to climb after work of course.
It is not what kids think about Vancouver.
I think that it is very telling when people have to scratch their heads when asked to name one unique thing about the city they live in; esp. when an average Joe cannot even afford it. Can YOU name one.
You cannot say the same about any other “world class” city or even other big cities in Canada like Toronto, Montreal, Calgary or Ottawa. It would be a spontaneous response in any of these cities.
It cannot be just about weather, Canucks or Olympics (and it was winter Olympics for crying out loud. More than two thirds of the world does not even care)
really? you have to resort to talking about what kids think about vancouver?
*cough* Have you ever read “The Emperors new clothes”?
That’s okay, we’d fully expect some to not understand the importance of what the children think, or what they parrot.
“Out of the mouths of babes..”
For a related illustrative story, see:
“Happy Smiling Buildings? – Subtle Signs Of A Distorted Vancouver RE Market In An Olympic Children’s Book”
VREAA 31 Jan 2010
No, I fully expected them to shout out, “Vancouver is not a world class city!” or “The fundamentals are out of whack!”
No, they’ll be shouting those phrases at a market BOTTOM, not a TOP.
You need to brush up on your behavioural economics and market psychology.
The picture is surprisingly realistic. The building with the umbrella is “leaking” water onto the next building, but most other buildings don’t have umbrellas – they must leaking to the inside… One other building is leaning forward, perhaps from an earthquake? And guess which building is full of dopers…
“Hot town, summer in the city
Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty
Been down, isn’t it a pity
Doesn’t seem to be a shadow in the city
All around, people looking half dead
Walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head”…
[CBC] – Kelowna plagued by fires
http://tinyurl.com/3cqlgr4
[CBC] – Gang leader reported killed in B.C. shooting: Several people wounded in a targeted attack
http://tinyurl.com/3mdzby9
Mr. Wiggles [to audience]: Boyz ‘n Girlz, can you say, “Bacon”? Can you say, “Cayenne”?