Announcer: “Remember that so called real estate bubble that’s been predicted to burst for what seems like forever? (laughs)… well it certainly didn’t happen last month… Canadian home sales rose almost 3% in Sept and 11% from the same month last year.”
—
Brad Lamb: “We are the number one condo market for new development on the planet.”
Announcer: “Brad Lamb is a RE broker and developer who has “been selling Toronto property for two decades, he says 2011 could be a record breaker.”
Brad Lamb: “I’m building over 2000 condos across Canada at present, and I’d say that 50% of those are under 520sqft.”
–
Announcer: “Yet there are worries that developers may be building too many condos in Toronto.”
Will Dunning, economist: “… we don’t know how they’ll be absorbed in the market place.”
Announcer: “Brad Lamb, who builds them, is not worried.”
Lamb: “This talk of bubble is ridiculous. But, we’re going to have recessions, we have them every 15 or 10 or 8 years, and when it happens, people are going to put their hands in their pockets and not buy real estate.”
-CBC Radio, “World at 6″, 17 Oct 2011
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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)
- 06. Held my Nose and Leapt (96)
- 07. Avoiding Vancouver (375)
- 08. Overextended Buyers (1183)
- 09. Delaying Buying (315)
- 10. Demoralized Renters? (362)
- 11. Regrets about Investing in RE (417)
- 12. Effects of Development (274)
- 13. 2010 Olympics Related (74)
- 14. Social Effects of the Boom (1256)
- 15. Misallocation of Resources (958)
- 16. Missed The Boat? (236)
- 17. The Froogle Scott Chronicles (27)
- 18. Spot The Speculator (171)
- 19. BlastRadiusPostCards (17)
- 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)
- 24. Policies On Housing (10)
- 25. Epigrams For The Bubble (1)
- 26. Premature Calls Of "Bottom" (3)
- 27. Seller Panic (3)
- 28. Erroneous Causation Theories For Falling Prices (7)
- 29. Bubblespeak (1)
- Uncategorized (176)
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
- 11 condohype [retired; archives available]
- 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
- 19 Vancouver Price Drop
- 20 North American Economics
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Latest Anecdotes:
- “My neighbours, in their late 60s, just put their house on the market. They had said they would die in that house, but now they are worried that with the housing market going south they may be losing a lot of equity and they better sell now before it gets worse.”
- 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.”
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Disingenuous developer is disingenuous. News at 11
perfect!
Iraqi information minister.
lol
Who remembers this?
This is awesome!
Obligatory video, “this lamb sells condos”:
i had no idea that was what this song was about. thank you for cracking the mystery
OT: http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2011/10/must-see-heart-wrenching-video-of-moral.html
Im in the same game as Lamb. Almost bankrupted 3 times. I carry 25 years of scars. My bankers like me because im a survivor, and im cautious.
Lamb isnt cautious. Doesnt matter whether it is 20, 200 or 2000. The banks will smash you to pieces and they dont give a rats
Ive sold everything i can. Im in cash. I expect the markets to crash. It may even take 2-5 years. Doesnt matter.
Really successful developers make their money at the bottom not the top.
I have a penchant for names. Names representing what the individual really is. In this case, it sounds like Lambs to the slaughter
Fortune favors the bold!
Canada’s low mortgage default rate is supportive of Lambs position. When it rises I will start taking the pessimism of this blog and its unscientific recount of anecdotes more seriously.
Okay. Stick around.
And, in the meantime, if you have any anecdotes supportive of a non-pessimistic outlook, please send those along.
Of course the “Big City Broker” (He had a “reality” show on HGTV) isn’t worried. No “Leader” is ever worried. At least, no publicly. To say anything less would be even bigger news and that would kill his business. Salespeople know not to tell the market where to go unless it’s to put cash in their pockets. Selling real estate on the edge of a bubble? Buy a condo now! Selling fear like Garth Turner? Buy my book now! Selling equities on the edge of a turbulent market? Buy gold now! Selling duct tape after a 9/11 event? Buy duct tape now! Everyone has something to sell and a way to spin it.
“I’m building over 2000 condos across Canada at present, and I’d say that 50% of those are under 520sqft”
Anyone else see a problem with this, WOW! who is the target for these super small condos? I can see their appeal to single buyers but the single won’t be be singles forever and then what?
I am going to guess most buyers of these small condos are speculating that the price will go up and that they will upgrade, I wonder how they will feel with a big mortgage and a small small place.
Of course Lamb isn’t worried, he just sucked in thousands of sheep, some with deep pockets who bought multiple deals and would freak on him if he said anything even slightly negative. Big developers in Victoria recently put a big project “on hold” due to market conditions when a month before the local media couldn’t quit gloating how hot the condo market was. Lamb will be cooked “well done” by winter’s end.
Heard in slaughter line to new condo pre-sales event In broken English with a thick Chinese accent:
“I buy 3, my husband buy 3!”
Transaction volume always peaks at the top in prices then suddenly drys up when the supply of new buyers is exhausted and the psychology of the longs starts to waver.