“Vancouver’s home prices have climbed by more than 25 % over the last two years, and are now, it seems, second only to New York City’s. I often receive emails asking about the situation. The TD Bank has forecast that Vancouver’s house prices will decline by 25 % over the next two years. Here’s my best guess:
In the long run, Vancouver’s real estate will trend upward. The city’s realty sign is ruled by the Moon, which stood in benevolent Taurus, and in the city’s money house, on April 6, 1886 when it was incorporated. (Always remember my forecast for 2023, though.)
In the medium range – to 2016 – foreign countries will continue to feed this city’s real estate – waves of Chinese have been buying here since the 1980’s, and the most recent wave should last to 2016.
However, even though this wave will defy the TD forecast, it will not have a smooth road upward. At present, a complicated change is occurring: while the true value of Vancouver’s homes will probably rise over the next 18 months, the actual sales prices enter a much less reliable outlook over this same short period.
One of two scenarios should play out: One, there might be a “nova effect” – a bubble in prices now into early 2013, but somewhere along the way the bubble will burst. I’d expect a peak to be reached around July 2012, then it stalls, and the decline begins. Around August/September 2012 foreign purchases of Vancouver’s real estate will dry up, perhaps due to bad luck in their home countries. About January 2013, the local government will take an action that hurts either the B.C. economy, or real estate directly. Two, all of the above events will occur except for the nova, or bubble. In this scenario, the decline has already begun, quietly and slowly, very recently, and will continue quietly and slowly through late 2016. In any case, I would wait until at least 2013 to buy Vancouver. I could be wrong.”
- Tim Stephens, Astrologer, ‘Astral Reflections’, late September 2011 (for week of Oct 2-8, 2011)
[hat-tip terminalcitygirl at VREAA]
As good a prediction as any.
The perfusion of RE into every realm of pop culture.
- vreaa
Definitely some words in there.
Wow, so many words so little said. This guy is wasted as an astrologer, he should be writing for CREA so that they don’t have to keep revising their forecasts.
So prices are going up until they go down. Pure genius.
perhaps you have something smarter to add…so prices are down until they go up again?Let’s hear it genius
Did you realize there’s a 4 in your handle! Oh my god, there’s a 4 in the YVR area code! It’s a sell for the Asians. Oh no, there’s a devilish 6 in there too! It’s a sell for the rest of us too!
Or if you prefer – Vancouver prices peaked in June 2011 after the hockey riots and will go down every year for the forseeable future as all bubbles / pyramid schemes eventually collapse.
I like the use of the word “perfusion”. Apt for an economy that needs an anatomical overhaul.
Well, I was going to stop myself from commenting on RE blogs (actually the VREAA gave me the chance for my maiden voyage in this universe!), given my lack of expertise compared to many of you guys here, but I have to say thank you for giving me the biggest laugh I’ve had in days about Vancouver RE with this post. I don’t know what’s funnier — “Always remember my forecast for 2023″ or the last sentence — “I could be wrong.” “I could be wrong but given the incontrovertibility of my divinations….” I mean, could Bob Rennie, the CMHC, etc. do better than to adopt this as a motto? Why don’t we all get together and write a satire on the real estate scene here and give it the title “I Could Be WRong”? Thanks again VREAA for helping save my sanity when I realized last week just how nutty life here can get. Makes me feel better about the whole catastrophe knowing you are out there.
Glad to see you back, Vesta.
With blogs as with Realtors, expertise is not a requirement.
If you would like some professional training before posting again, Benson Wang has many positive testimonials:
This didn’t make me feel better about real estate, but it did make me feel better about trying to blog! Thanks so much for this clip; it’s somehow delicious to keep being scandalized.
I propose that our future anthology, “I Could Be Wrong: The Best of the VREAA,” have forewords by the astrologist and this student who complained about having to read the real estate book to pass the real estate course. Better yet, our tome could have a kind of anti-blurb from this student: “too many details.”
Yes, 604x, this is definitely therapeutic! Many thanks.
Hey, at least the astrologer admits he could be wrong… A few anecdotes ago, Thomas Beyer, President of “Prestigious Properties Group” had all the certainty of a Wall Street Analyst that Vancouver’s home prices would continue to rise until 2050.
Add a few shakes of feng shui plus a dash of Chinese lunar calendar and this bubble will never end. But, I could be wrong as well.
PS Welcome back to the fold Vesta. This is the best therapy you’ll find on the Vanhatten situation.
some more bullshit
if it’s not geomancy is superstition and astrology
crash, baby, crash!
Derp, what happened to your blog? I miss it.
Dig this passage from the astrologer:
“..while the true value of Vancouver’s homes will probably rise over the next 18 months, the actual sales prices enter a much less reliable outlook over this same short period.”
–
“Sure, the price of my home may have dropped by 30%, but the actual value keeps going up.”
We hadn’t heard this put quite like that before… (but it is a version of the ‘sticky price’ phenomenon where sellers don’t sell because they ‘know’ that their house is worth more than current market price).
And, of course, it could be argued (but not by us) that the astrologer’s statement is similar to bears arguing that houses may be priced at ‘x’ but have a ‘true underlying value’ of ‘y’.
(Bears have fundamentals on their side in this argument; Astrologers do not).
What the hell is going to happen in 2023? You can’t just yadda, yadda, yadda over specific year like that when you’re making dire predictions. Now I’m freaking out.
Don’t worry excessively, it gets a lot less worse in 2027.