- photos by ‘ams’, who writes:
“Just came back through YVR international arrivals and got pictures of the real estates ads that you see once you clear customs and are on your way out, there are two billboards inside and two outside. The last time I went through YVR it was all Real estate ads, today only four.
Most world airports, in the international arrival area, greet you with some ads for local companies, or the local economic development explaining how great the city/region is for business.”
[thanks ams. - vreaa]
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- 01 Vancouver Condo Info
- 02 AmericaCanada [retired, no archive]
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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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Anecdotes Banks Bears blogs British Columbia Bubble Bulls buyers Canada Capitulation China CMHC Construction Debt Economy Employment Fear Foreign buyers Fundamentals Government Housing Interest Rates Landlords Life Media Mortgage brokers Okanagan Olympics Ownership Prediction Real Estate Realtors Relationships Rent Retirement RE_ATM sellers Sentiment Speculators Toronto US Vancouver Victoria Visual Anecdote Whistler
RE and Tourism is our business for BC. And really why would you ever live?
Seriously though, are any of these builders really reputable with pride in their quality and craftsmanship anymore?
Umm… Most airports I’ve been to, and I have been to many, tout real estate no more or less than Vancouver. This is a myopic post.
It is what it is; take it for that.
It’s not a rigorous study comparing frequency of RE ads in airports of the world.
It’s one traveller’s impression (and opinion), and a few snapshots to remind us of what it’s like to emerge from customs at YVR, circa Nov 2011.
It is itself just a snapshot.
I’ve just come from airports in Western Europe, New England, Southeast Asia. Their ads push high-end dining and tourist attractions — no real estate.
That adds to ‘ams’s observation.
Rob?
Yes, like Puerto Vallarta timeshares: stay classy Vancouver. Next it will be the free breakfasts.
Polygon has a baby. Awwww… meesa so confuse now
Speaking of timeshares, we were in Whistler couple weekends ago for a getaway. Really off-season, so supercheap rates on hotels. While we walked the empty streets in the rain near the Fairmont, we noticed this creepy looking woman lurking in a doorway wearing a long black trenchcoat. She approached us and gave us a spiel about Intrawest properties, free Visa card, free dinner etc etc. Of course we declined, so she went back to her lurking. I’ve heard that the market is dead in Whistler, but ironic that they have to resort to trench-coat wearing lurkers to lure people to the fantastic opportunity of timeshares (and even more ironically, it was the day before Halloween). In other news re: Whistler, it seems to have finally dawned on my sister in law that her Whistler condo is declining value on a nearly weekly basis (cost her $225k in 2000, now valued at around $250k(maybe), plus her expenses cost her $10k per year). Perhaps this Christmas I won’t be subjected to her speech on “buy real estate, it only ever goes up!”
too much time to kill.
well, find something constructive to do
get stuff done
Patrick Smith is a political science professor at SFU who has made his academic career of trawling through campaign financing records, much to the chagrin of city clerks across the province.
“In this case, the money speaks a lot,” he says. “If you look across the range of contributions and you try to group them broadly, the property development and construction business is the largest collective group of contributors.”
http://thetyee.ca/News/2011/11/09/Vancouver-Election-Financing/