“In fact, sky-high Vancouver housing prices were one of the reasons why my son, a young engineer, and his wife chose to move to Montreal, where they were able to buy a townhouse for half what they’d have to pay here.
They miss Vancouver terribly, and we miss them and our little granddaughter. But we realize the vast distance separating us is the penalty we pay for living in Lotusland, and my son pays for having a real job.”
- from ‘We need to look at a greater variety of housing options’, Jon Ferry, The Province, 27 Jan 2012
Hat-tip to Patiently Waiting, at vancouvercondo.info 27 Jan 2012 2:44pm, who also adds:
“A smug Boomer newspaper columnist is suddenly concerned about housing affordability. Why?
He’s only concerned now that it affects him personally.”
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Blogroll
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Latest Anecdotes:
- Basement Suite In East Vancouver Sells For $590K
- “A lawyer knocked on the door of my rented house on the Westside of Vancouver this afternoon, and offered me $2.4M. He was going door to door asking if anyone wanted to sell.”
- UBC Condo Selling Pressure?
- Sticky Price 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

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The article and the comments are amusing, same old, same old. All those darn rich Chinese buying up precious BC. Guess in their mind it now means Be Chinese.
On a different note: I noted a lot of furniture stores apparently going out of business, that’s what happened back in 2008 as well. Guess when you’re afraid of going broke you don’t buy overpriced cardboard furniture.
@Michael — I read the article but not the comments. So I can’t speak about the comments, but the article actually insists that blame not be directed at wealthy Asian buyers. It suggests among other things that local governments move to help create more affordable housing options.
There is nothing the local governments can do to create more affordable housing. Unless you want taxpayer sponsored ghettos.
This bubble needs to pop by itself and then the governments (local and federal) should stay out of the way until we reach the bottom.
No the article didn’t, but it also didn’t point out that a lot of personal greed is involved. That he suggests that current prices need to be preserved because so many people have banked on being house rich just adds to this in my opinion.
The comments of course are the usual “The Chinese are coming!” BS.
As for the local Government to create more affordable housing: That’s a nice idea. That would require to allow higher density (good luck with the NIMBYs), though probably more importantly to get more rental units build, something that developers aren’t really interested in as they can’t make as much money from it as with Condos.
They won’t and can’t. The Federal Government can’t because of CHMC and the provincial and local Government can’t because they know full well how many people are in way over their head.
They can, they should, but they won’t.
Agreed, a lot of people can’t even consider buying even after a crash and the private market does a poor job of providing certain types of housing.
I live in a very large apartment that’s big enough for a family with children. Even though this probably was family housing at one time, the investor landlord doesn’t want to deal with renting to a family. Kinda sad really. I’m getting a great deal because I’m easier to deal with, and will cause less wear-and-tear, since I don’t have children or pets.
Vancouver is notorious for its lack of suitable family housing for all but the rich. Market failure, bubble or not. Government-subsidized townhouses is the only realistic answer.
Local governments to create more affordable housing….
How exactly? What mechanism? I thought the olympic athletes village was affordable housing, how’s that working out?
Please don’t let the government try to make housing “more affordable.”
Mouse, there is massive governmentintervention, but is one of the purestforms of a democratic checkwe have. Developers decry regulations allowing more supply via rezoning yet powerful neighbourhood groups run ragged over any suggestionsto change hood’s character.
Perhaps governments are to blamebut IMO real estateis one of the purestexamples of how fearfulofficials are of the next election.
from the article:
“Forget caviar dreams on a Costco budget. Reduce your housing expectations. Think Kia rather than BMW, and Arborite rather than granite”
or, rather than try to move the mountain…start climbing
Who has “caviar dreams on a Costco budget”?
Only the completely deluded.
The problem is that in Vancouver, you have to forget caviar dreams on a caviar budget, and forget Costco dreams on a Costco budget.
In Vancouver, to realize Costco dreams, you have to have a caviar budget.
“In Vancouver, to realize Costco dreams, you have to have a caviar budget.”
Well said!
Touche!
“In Vancouver, to realize Costco dreams, you have to have a caviar budget”
only 30% of all properties are detached with land running close to 1M each in Vancouver proper. I’d wouldn’t describe this as a costco dream. Try a condo.
Most of those detached properties are Costco quality at caviar prices.
Actually, that’s an unnecessary insult to Costco. Most of those properties are below Costco quality, at caviar prices. Seriously, not joking here.
or crack-shack dreams on a caviar budget.
or condo-crap on a caviar budget?
And, to argue that, if one “starts climbing”, you, too will be able to afford a Costco lifestyle on a caviar budget, is… silly.
This is not a Race Issue a Globalization Issue. We need to protect our Canadian Citizens and make it affordable to bring up a family in this city. Otherwise we erode it away entirely.
Foreign TAX!!! Perhaps limits on ownership.