Emily Yao admits to disappointment when her bid on a three-bedroom condominium in this desirable West Coast city was turned down last October. But a month later the systems programmer, who moved to Vancouver from mainland China six years ago, snapped up the still-unsold condominium on Vancouver’s East Side for $550,000, a difference of $9,000 below the original price tag.
It’s a pattern being replicated across the Pacific port city, in a dramatic turnaround from the bidding wars, show day stampedes, and above-market offers that long dominated North America’s costliest property market.
“Since October, it was like someone turned off the tap. It became absolutely dead,” said long-time realtor Pam Allen.
What’s taking the sizzle out of Vancouver prices and putting the brakes on sales are expectations that rock-bottom Canadian mortgage rates will stay low, so there is no rush to buy.
At the same time, Chinese investors, who have long helped to underpin the city’s red-hot market, are holding back because property market curbs back home means they have less cash available.
But with immigrants still streaming in from China and elsewhere, and the city frequently rated one of the most livable on the planet, most experts see prices fizzling rather than imploding with a bang.
…
No official figures are available on the percentage of Vancouver home sales to investors from mainland China or Chinese immigrants. But local realtor Tom Gradecak says that in popular areas such as the West Side, a leafy block of land flanking the university, it could be 50 per cent, rising to up to 75 per cent for homes selling for more than $3 million.
“Chinese money is a big factor … today as it was in the period after 1986,” said David Ley, author of the book “Millionaire Migrants”, which examines the impact immigrants had on Vancouver’s housing market.
“House prices in greater Vancouver bear no relationship to the local labor market. Prices are kept high by offshore capital arriving from immigrants and from foreign investors.”
…
Despite a mid-recession dip around 2008, Canada’s housing market has remained resilient for the past decade, and the Vancouver market has outperformed the rest of the country for seven of the last 10 years.
Vancouver price rises peaked at a stunning 19.8 per cent in 2006, dipped in 2009, and came roaring back with double-digit growth in both 2010 and 2011.
A house bought for $500,000 in 2001 would have fetched about $1.2 million a decade later, based on average price changes.
But the latest month-to-month figures show Vancouver prices fell in five of seven months from last June to December, including drops of more than 5 per cent in November and December.
…
There is always talk of bubbles, of course, but experts don’t see the Vancouver market crashing as the U.S. one did.
…
“I would anticipate Vancouver house prices falling further. We don’t know by how much,” said Sal Guatieri, senior economist at Bank of Montreal, co-author of a report entitled “Will Canada’s Housing Boom Forge On, Fizzle Out, or Flame Out?”.
“But that is one area that appears ripe for some sort of correction, though we are not anticipating a severe correction.
…
Realtor Tom Gradecak, who specializes in property in Vancouver’s pricey West Side, says it is too early to see any impact here, though he expects there will be some domino effect. In the business for the past 20 years, he remains sanguine about Vancouver’s real estate prospects.
“We will see ups and downs, but I think five years from now the prices will be higher than they are today,” he said.
- from ‘Vancouver home prices to fizzle, not pop’, Reuters/Vancouver Sun, 9 Feb 2012
“Expert, texpert choking smokers
Don’t you think the joker laughs at you?”
- Lennon/McCartney
“There is always talk of bubbles, of course, but experts don’t see the Vancouver market crashing as the U.S. one did.”
They keep talking to the wrong experts. Interviewing a realtor for a story like this is like asking a clear-cut logger to comment on the health of the forest.
” . . . . the West Side, a leafy block of land . . .” But not leafy for long, if current trends continue; the article makes no mention of social consequences of the market. I love the casual dismissal of well-informed analysis: “There is always talk of bubbles, of course.” Not always, actually — just when buying a home costs 10 times an average salary. The original article makes even clearer that the reporter is simply repeating realtors’ talking points that we’ve heard over and over, for the last year or more; in addition to those immigrants “streaming in,” Vancouver is “hemmed in” by ocean, mountains, and US border, and Vancouver real estate prices have magically become detached from local incomes, which are no longer relevant to the course of the market. Why didn’t they just reprint Bob Rennie’s column from last summer, or take a tape recorder to one of the open houses we visited then? Maybe because the realtards have now added some (nonsensical) talking point about interest rates; i.e. not to worry if sales seem to be slowing, the buyers are still there, just taking a little more time to buy before they’re priced out forever.
“We will see ups and downs, but I think five years from now the prices will be higher than they are today”
Over 5 years I tend to agree because the Bank of Canada and US Fed have no plans to raise target interest rates any time soon, and mortgage rates follow target interest rates almost to a tee. Did things collapse in the US, yes, but after a spike in interest rates. Here I expect a correction like in 2008, then another leg up and new highs. I know theoretically we don’t NEED a rate hike to pop the bubble, but I do not think this particular Vancouver bubble will pop with a bang without a real rate hike.
But, I think in about ten years, rates here may finally rise, and we may finally get our super massive correction, and it could be huge, but sadly in about ten years. Time for me to rent a nicer place in the meantime? I could get a name change anyway
.
I’d see the trajectory for the next few years as very likely being different from that, Basement.
Once prices drop this time, there won’t be “another leg up and new highs”, in real terms, for two decades. Think about it: the price drop will cause loss of the speculative component, and that is solely responsible for the price strength of the last 5 years. Once spec sentiment leaves, there will be little to replace it.
Probable descent will be two-three years of severe fracture, then grind down.
I’d love that to be true VREAA, but what happened in 2008, all we got was a little 20% correction that on the graph looks like a little blip next to the stupid gains RE had already made for the previous 8 years, and then sure enough new money came in to gobble up the “deals” and new highs were made. Hyper inflation at work, ain’t free money great.
But I sure hope you are right and I am wrong on this one!
2008 was not the end of a bubble, next time prices start deflating, it will be.
That’d be awesome, and about time.
“Hyper inflation at work, ain’t free money great.”
A few countries would currently disagree with you.
About free money causing hyper inflation? It’s true here and in the US, might be miserable now but it was all roses up to 2008. The US bubble had to grow before it popped, and it had to be fed to grow. It was fed (no pun inteneded) money. Free money inflates bubbles.
+1 VREAA. Again I’ll make the comment that this is how it rolled in the UK – we now stand at 30%below 2007 in real terms – oh, and no-one goes no, in the media or in private, about “house prices”. Perhaps interesting for folks on this board to note that the only region of the UK to stabilise thus far has been London, with its strong economic fundamentals; Edinburgh, which, like Vancouver, is often cited as being highly desirable, BPOE etc, but has no real industry to speak of, plummeted 20% in 2 years and has since seen gentle declines of 2-3% a year. Of course, that wld still make an SFH in YVR worth $700,000 by 2015, which is pretty much the average price in Greater London…
“Of course, that wld still make an SFH in YVR worth $700,000 by 2015″
Exactly, we need way more than a mere 20% pullback. I have seen numbers of 60% as good place to start, given some of the tiny, 1960′s dumps listed at 2 million here.
oooo but it’s the LAND that’s worth so much
don’t you know living at Clark and kingsway is where EVERYONE who’s ANYONE wants to live?
be and up and coming young go-getter and get your balls out of your purse, get mortgaged to the hilt and LIVE THE GOOD LIFE IN VANCOUVER
YOU’RE RICHER THAN YOU THINK, right?
“I think in about ten years, rates here may finally rise”
You know something that the bond market doesn’t know?
http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/GCAN10YR:IND
Yes I do. I know what Helicopter Ben promised, and I know that the BOC follows the US fed like a puppy dog. I also know mortgage rates almost always follow target interest rates. The central bank is controlling the taps and if the fed gives free money for years to come, so will the BOC, and mortgage rates will stay low.
“So to wrap it up, bonds do not necessarily relate to mortgage rates, but they do seem to rise and fall in align with them.”
http://www.loansafe.org/how-does-the-bond-market-affect-mortgage-rates
also
“Changes in the target for the overnight rate influence other interest rates, such as those for consumer loans and mortgages. ”
http://www.bankofcanada.ca/monetary-policy-introduction/key-interest-rate/
The US bubble burst not because of rising rates but because they ran out of buyers. A combination of marginal buyers (subprime) and declining affordability meant the market simply ran away from itself. Now in a periodof deleveraging, the US market has still not recovered despite over 3 years of record low mortgage rates.
“Declining affordability” in the US was in large part because interest rates spiked temporarily, it wasn’t all just teaser rates expiring, there was an actual short-term rate hike. That helped burst their bubble. Free money means affordability declines more slowly. I know people who are quite happily paying their mortgages, so long as interest rates stay low they tell me. They hope rates do not rise.
Have they recovered with all the new free money? Not really yet, bubble doesn’t re-inflate in a flash, thankfully, sentiment has changed for awhile. But it was the spike that popped it. Can it pop without a spike? Theoretically, yes, but will it here in Vancouver very soon and to the huge degree it should? I doubt it, but being a renter, obviously wish it would.
Agreed with Basement. All the regulations in the world won’t save us if the credit is cheap. As long as credit is cheap, the lenders will find out a way to make the loans easy. (Look how easily the banks have skirted even CMHC’s already meagre 5% downpayment requirements, with cashback offers of up to 7%!) Just because inflation hasn’t shown up in the CPI doesn’t mean it’s not there. For the last few years, the inflation has been in housing.
However, the fact that banks are able to offload their risk onto the taxpayers via the CMHC certainly aggravates this situation well beyond what it would be otherwise. Cheap BoC rates combined with an easy, taxpayer-backed scheme for insulating lenders from the risks of their own loan portfolios are a deadly combination.
I think the Fed started to raise rates inrementally beginning in 2004. By 2006, they had raised it by 4% or so, and the bubbliest markets were headed down.
Here in the northwest US, we hung on until 2007, with lots of claims of “it’s different here.” But really we just tend to lag the rest of the US economy.
The steadiness with which the Fed started raising rates actually belied their claim that they weren’t concerned with the frothy housing market. They were worried, but too crude with how they went about deflating it.
I’m sorry, but I don’t know where you guys are seeing this spike in US mortgage rates? Rates were easing higher but I would argue that there really was no “spike” and that any rise in rates was really not what burst the bubble anyway – rather, it was the fact that price levels reached a point where they just could go no higher. The market ran out of eligible buyers. A saturated market with excessive speculation, an oversupply of new homes, and a declining economy with falling wages took over from there. Please take a look at this chart that shows very clearly that mortgage rates and house prices in the US are not exactly correlated.
http://www.doctorhousingbubble.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/mortgage-rates-us-home-values.png
I don’t disagree that central banks have goosed national economies with artificially low and inflationary monetary policies, and I don’t disagree that CMHC has played a central roll in the mis-pricing of risk here in Canada. I agree all of that has fueled the speculative bubble we are in – but I really do not think a spike in mortgage rates is a necessary impetus for a burst of the bubble. Infact, I think we will look back in several years and agree that late 2011 was the top and the burst happened well before any spike in mortgage rates.
That chart you post shows avg. 30-year rate bottoming near 5% in 2003/04, and then rising to around 7%. Maybe it isn’t a “spike” but it is plenty to cool things off given all of the other factors you’ve mentioned.
When people are truly maxed out, taking on the highest payment they can barely handle with some dodgy mortgage terms, then even 1% can be enough of a “spike”.
Thanks Raging and Snats, nice to see a minority agreement, we can’t all agree on everything but nice not to be totally alone in one’s views on this blog, albeit we have plenty of agreement in the rest of the world.
well, we can never run out of buyers now that we’re in the process of making this treaty port our very own SEZ playground for the Party Vanguard.
STOP BITCHING, RENTERS
GET A CLUE AND MAN UP, NANCY – BUY NOW OR BE PRICED OUT .. FOREVER!
hope your kids learn mandarin, etc etc. and other assorted troll baits..
You know it really astounds me how so few here agree that the Bank of Canada’s free money is largely to blame for this bullshit. Do you all have credit cards to pay down or something? Only ones who agree with me that mortgage rates follow target rates, and that stupid low mortgage rates are largely to blame for the hyper inflation in housing, are economists, central banks, bank presidents and journalists, to name a few.
I don’t disagree enitrely but how do you reconcile the fact that prices for average SFH’s in Calgary have continued to drop since the peak in 2007 despite, during this time, mortgage rates have steadily declined while the Alberta (and Calgary) economy has been one of the strongest in the country. Obviously, the low BoC target rate has had marginal to no influence on housing prices in Alberta.
Vancouver RE, on the other hand, is indisputably driven by foreign money which has enabled the marginal influence of lower mortgage rates to have a much larger impact on prices because of the prevalent “bubble psychology” there. Face it, how many local Vancouver borrowers get pre-approved for a mortgage and then jump into a bidding war that results in an increased contractual obligation of several hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Finally, mortgage rates are determined by the duration of borrowing and term structure of interest rates so that the BoC target rate is just one aspect of mortgage rates. It’s important to recognize that the correlation between the target rate, short rates, and long rates changes over time. Over the past few years, the low BoC target rate has mirrored the market’s (and Bank of Canada’s) forecast for lower longer term rates with the current increased risk of global asset price deflation – thanks to massive global imbalances between the developed world and China. Also, the BoC wants an upward sloping yield curve to protect the value of bank assets so as to allow the free flow of credit (through the banks fractional reserve monetary system) to keep economic activity in Canada from grinding to a halt as during the 2008 financial crisis. As a indirect consequence, low cash target borrowing rates and low term market rates have inflated bubbles in sectors where there is also considerable external monetary stimulus – ie. Vancouver RE is the classic bubble because of the considerable leaky Chinese monetary stimulus with added fuel from both the Bank of Canada and the global debt market. As the rate of Chinese money supply growth decreases going forward (to deflate their own massive bubble), Vancouver RE will continue to crash. Your crash is inevitable, despite anything the Bank of Canada does with target rates. Sure wish i had the ability to write synthetic Vancouver mortgage-backed CDO’s over the past year as per Paulson et al given that CMHC is not publicly traded as “was” Fannie and Freddie.
The BoC is definitely pouring gas on the fire, but the smouldering tires are from socialized credit. The CMHC is vastly underpricing risk, and the banks are buying. They will continue to buy until the price is fixed.
Valuations are now so far above rental value and leverage is so high and the economy is so dependent on housing that there is really no way to unwind it. Any attempt to charge a normal price for mortgage insurance (commensurate with expected losses) will pop the bubble. Instead the government is trying to slowly blow it larger, kick the can down the road and hope that everything will turn out ok. That won’t happen. They have made the problem worse and it will continue to get worse.
“I don’t disagree enitrely but how do you reconcile the fact that prices for average SFH’s in Calgary have continued to drop”
Free money allowed prices to get so out of whack in the first place. Ending free money can end a bubble quick, along with well deserved pain, albeit. Bubbles can eventually peter out without cutting off the teat, but in Vancouver as you point out there are other forces helping support the bubble. Point is, free money CAUSED, or at very least ALLOWED this to happen, because without the wood there is no fire, and while it can theoretically end without an end to free money (as I said), why focus on that.
The free money is what should be stopped.
I mean everywhere I look people agree with me. Only those on this blog downplay the role of the BOC. Here is another example.
http://canadabubble.com/
“Rock-bottom mortgage rates have been the fuel behind Canada’s house-price boom.”
If you believe that the BoC target rate drives all borrowing rates then prepare yourself for rates to drop further and stay there for at least the next two decades. I’m not saying that this is the course for all borrowing rates but this is the likely course for the BoC target rate if you examine what’s happening throughout the world. There will be no rationale for the BoC to increase overnight borrowing rates until there are very visible signs of core inflation higher than 3%. Of course, in the mean time, we’ll see 4 to 5% inflation in food and gasoline and negative inflation in wages similar to Japan but with the added problem of peak food and oil.
“how do you reconcile the fact that prices for average SFH’s in Calgary have continued to drop since the peak in 2007 despite, during this time, mortgage rates have steadily declined” – Airedales
I’m guessing Calgary doesn’t have that west coast bureaucrat enthusiasm.
Property assessor, Mark Katz, South Fraser Region, Metro Vancouver, explains cheerfully that many regions of the Lower Mainland are up fifty percent this year, in
“Your 2012 BC Assessments explained”
http://youtu.be/z_0wVacRMIs about 3.5 minutes.
I’m not sure Mark fully comprehends the economics at work, but that’s not his job. He seems excited, even cavalier, that affordable housing just got nixed yet again for another generation, in one assessment year. Wow. I was awed by this bureaucrat’s bliss. Veiled concern?
“Property assessor, Mark Katz, South Fraser Region, Metro Vancouver, explains cheerfully that many regions of the Lower Mainland are up fifty percent this year”
Wow, and that doesn’t spell bubble to this guy.
Helicopter Ben is calling for further steps to heal the housing market. Quelle logique pour une sortie de crise – reward the gamblers and punish the savers!
“Because some creditworthy households are finding it difficult to obtain mortgage credit or to refinance, the strong actions taken by the Federal Reserve to put downward pressure on longer-term rates and to improve financial conditions have had less effect on the housing sector and overall economic activity than they otherwise would have had,”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-10/bernanke-says-housing-slump-is-holding-back-fed-s-efforts-to-boost-economy.html
holy crap, not this one again. do this:
(a) find chart of any big central bank balance sheet (fed, ecb, boj, whatever). that is what happens you try to hold bond rates down when they don’t ‘want’ to be.
unhealthy, unless you have policies that correct the issues that cause you to need above strategy (a).
(b) now find chart of bond yields in greece, ireland, portugal, spain, italy, etc. this is what happens when strategy (a) finally fails.
now you see where we are headed?
As I said above, only ones who agree with me that mortgage rates follow target rates, and that stupid low mortgage rates are largely to blame for the hyper inflation in housing, are economists, central banks, bank presidents and journalists, to name a few. Only those on this blog seem to have a great omniscience lacking by the reast of the world. The central banks don’t affect mortgage rates because Econ 101 mentioned to you that there is no deterministic relationship, okay keep telling yourself that and then you won’t think the 1% BOC rate matters to RE, and you can be happy about it. Just don’t listen to the rest of the world outside this blog.
basement, discovery is a process. eg. just read only 25% of greek bank deposits have been yanked. so, what are the rest of them thinking? happens all the time, how many failed to escape genocidal campaigns when warning signs were flashing madly?
All around me I see Realtors closing. Failure. Deal with it.
I take it you don’t mean “closing” in the sense of sealing the deal on sales.
?
Interesting comment in there about how the expectation for low rates is actually keeping people out of the market. No risk in taking a wait and see approach if the cost of borrowing isn’t expected to go up. Having said that I would estimate there are very very few capable buyers actually waiting on the sidelines around here.
The logic is pretty weak on that one.
“People are buying because interest rates are low, and are expected to remain so” <— hmm, ok, plausible. (Especially since basically all Canadian mortgages expose you to interest rate risk in the near or medium future)
"People aren't buying because they expect rates to remain low, so they can wait" <— ??? Unless rates are expected to drop, why would someone wait.
Unless we're waiting for higher rates to shake out speculators and weak hands out of the market. I, for one, would accept higher interest rates if this meant that the total debt was lower.
Ironically, 'affordability' measures like ultra-low rates, long amortizations and low to zero dp requirements fueled the rise of prices. Wind these back, and you'll see affordability return.
Well it’s logical for me. I could buy today but I’m holding out and in no panic because I don’t see the cost of borrowing spiking anytime soon (the private Federal Reserve Bank said rates will stay low through 2013). I have a great rental home, I have the down payment ready, I have a mortgage pre-approved for a ridiculous 5 times current income, I know what kind of property and where – it’s all lined up. However, I expect prices to collapse and I do not see mortgage rates spiking therefore I am perfectly content to wait it out. Like I said I am pretty sure there aren’t too many in my position so I really don’t know how big an impact this thinking has on the market but I do think it’s logical.
VREAA, an “I am the Walrus” quote? Love it.
As I mentioned yesterday over at VCI, I just returned from a California road trip. One of the spots we stayed was the Monterey Peninsula, scene of this weekend’s Pebble Beach Pro-Am. What an amazing region. Pure sand beaches, colossal rock outcroppings, towering waves smashing against the shore, windswept trees standing starkly against the sky. And a collection of homes nestled in the middle of all of it, flanked by the Pebble Beach and Spyglass courses and many with stunning views of a coastline far more dramatic than anything you’ll find in the BPOE. Just an hour to the north is the massive money of Silicon Valley, five minutes to the south is hoity-toity Carmel, and fifteen minutes further is the stunning Pacific Coast Highway and Big Sur. Yet one can buy a home on 17 Mile Drive, a rarified, view-crazy, roller-coaster of a road that adjoins the PB and Spyglass courses and costs $9.50 just to *drive upon*, for as little as $800,000. Granted, it’ll take three mil or more for a mansion on acreage and five-plus for a world-class palace you have to see to believe, but you get my drift.
I spent a little time with a few of the locals down there, filling them in on the local RE market. Not surprisingly, no one I spoke with had any idea the Vancouver area had been commanding such huge dollars. I think “stunned” sums it up pretty nicely. “Vancouver?” “Why?” “Didn’t you guys learn *anything*?”
Inside the BPOE, we’re constantly hit with lies of how the whole world wants to come here. But down there, where, BTW, there are *plenty* of Chinese scoping out the joint, we’re just a rainy blip. Truly, the local lunacy is only magnified when looking at it from *outside* the bubble.
I came away from the experience even more convinced the crash that has now begun won’t stop before valuations in many local neighbourhoods have dropped at *least* 50%. IMO, there is now nothing – nothing – to stop it.
you’re just jealous, renting swine
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Vancouver+housing+market+will+spared+severe+correction+Expert/6129139/story.html
“I think there’s some concern that prices don’t get so far out of whack that there’s a substantial correction,” Somerville said. “All you have to do is look around and you’ll see that if [a substantial correction] does happen, that would be a real big problem. So let’s not let the housing market be driven by a wave of cheap and easy-to-access money.”
“I think there’s some concern that prices don’t get so far out of whack that there’s a substantial correction,” Somerville said
What does that mean?
I think that’s double speak for “the end’s not near – it’s here!”; “Crash time!”; “Keep buying suckers!”.
Guess, lying too often has put a ding in Mr. Harvard’ brain.
I think it could be taken two ways, and he intends this. A) “If prices kept going up, that would be a bubble at risk of correction” — thus implicitly denying this is already the situation. B.) “We are concerned (about exactly what is not important) — when the BC economy is a wasteland, remember I said this now.” A big CYA.
Complaining of an ‘odeur’ redolent of MapleSyrup and MoldyCondos… BanquetChefs in Beijing’s Fengtai district disregard diplomatic protocol and court the wrath of PartyElites… by donning surgical masks… and unintentionally snubbing Canadian PrimeMinister Harper & Consort…
[ChinaDaily] – Politics off the menu
http://tinyurl.com/7p6wxt9
Okay, a non-economist here speaking up — since this is an “anecdote archive,” I’ll keep up my supply of anecdotes.
I too was wondering if Jesse sees realtors “closing” deals, i.e. selling houses all around him. The spring market is here and while, to coin a phrase, I don’t want to burst any bubbles of hope on this blog, I am starting to see more and more “Sold” stickers slapped on “For Sale” signs. There’s still a lot of inventory out there, and more being added daily it seems, but there are multimillion dollar places selling, definitely. Not surprising, as people buy houses most often in the spring, but we’ll have to wait to see if there’s a real further slowdown.
I’ll keep the blog posted on my efforts to alert politicians and media to RE-stat [DOM, price history] censorship (as we were bemoaning it yesterday).
Sure, stats show more sales compared to January. That always happens in every kind of market.
Sales happen in every kind of market, and the best salesmen/women know how to make them. As the market declines, you get to see who is good at their jobs.
Here is a great example of a young greedy speculator that’s going to learn a painful lesson…
Wealthy Barmaid’s RRSP is 2 income properties
Good story.
Would it be fair to assume that most of her saved income is from undeclared and therefore tax-free gratuities, and that her property speculations are government insured?
you’ll find within the industry that there are a few that declare all
some that declare some
and many that declare NOTHING
(the eye candy)
Good gracious. You people really get to the heart of the issue quickly here on this site. And no foreplay at all. So basically you are suggesting waitress gal is ripping us off (the taxpayer) by not declaring all her income and getting simultaneously subsidized with the luxury of home ownership at the expense of renters and the government (that would be the taxpayer again).
Why can we not have a bubble burst that just kicks the idiots in the nuts and makes them broke like everywhere else on earth! That is what foolish speculators deserve. To go broke.
Are we crazy here now? Next there will be special benefits to keep these leaches in their homes and that will be subsidized by the rentier classes and taxpayer too…….maybe we will get lucky and she will get a permanent hang-nail serving pints of brew to greedy old Boomers.
I’m with Renter’s Revenge. Renting and waiting. When the time comes, I’ll be able to pay cash and then mortgage 80% and invest it, thus making my mortgage interest tax deductible.
I’m only looking forward to the crash in the very narrow sense that I want to own. Broadly, the combination of owners’ negative wealth effect and unemployment in the construction/FIRE sectors are going to have a brutal effect on the economy. As an investor who’s going to have to get more selective and more foreign, and as a citizen who’s going to have to live here, I’ll certainly be wishing the whole thing had never happened.
How can we have no subprime like the US did, and at the same time be at 70% home ownership just like the US was at the peak? Do we have a more homogeneous population, such that nearly everyone can afford and care for a home? I’ve seen and met many who, I suspect, can’t.
it’s different here
listen,
we don’t need doubt
now is no time for cynicism
IT’S THE BEST PLACE ON EARTH! didn’t you get your new license plates? oh you didn’t pay the extra fee? cheapskate renter..
Oh, so that’s it. You mean to say the license plates in BC actually have BPOE written on them? That is too f***ing funny man. Is that true? What happened to Supernatural BC and Beautiful BC? Now I get it. So I was right yesterday when i wrote that BPOE stands for “big pile of ego”
Loooooooozzzzerrrrrrss. Ha Ha ha.!!!!!!!
Somebody please tell me that is just a joke. BPOE plates ha ha ha ha!!!!
@farmer
some of us have been tempered by the absurd disgrace to history that is the BPOE and can now withstand any intellectual-bullshit battering any force of nature or entity in the universe can hurl at us!
i believe the result of this process is called ‘jaded’ or perhaps ‘apathy’ or ‘profoundly demoralized malaise’ etc. etc.
http://thetyee.ca/Mediacheck/2011/10/04/BC-Best-Place-On-Earth/
try not to be ill