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Photos and commentary for the ‘BlastRadius’ series by ‘Nemesis’.
[Images Ⓒ2012 ‘Nemesis’ – All Rights Reserved]
Most Recent Comments:
- Nemesis on Chat Thread
- neonatal nurse Jobs on ‘Giant Bubble Bursts Into The Record Books – “Screams of excitement followed gasps of astonishment as a giant bubble rose up and surrounded the participants before bursting in spectacular fashion.”
- What And When To Purchase Langley Real Estate Langley Real Estate Agents Can Be Busy Because Of The Completely New Building Around The City! | Bookworm Room on Author Of ‘Real Estate Investing for Canadians for Dummies’ “jumped into the market 3 years ago with a 2 BR apartment in Mount Pleasant”; Reports Ownership Cheaper Than Renting; Leaves Out Math
- rod_jonsson on Chat Thread
- Annie on British Columbians Selling & Moving To The US – “It was just too good of an opportunity to turn down.”
- bad credit fast cash loans on British Columbians Selling & Moving To The US – “It was just too good of an opportunity to turn down.”
- Real Estate Tsunami on Chat Thread
- Nemesis on Chat Thread
- Nemesis on Chat Thread
- Nemesis on Chat Thread
- jj on Chat Thread
- ANON on Chat Thread
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 (1182)
- 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 (1255)
- 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
-
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.”
Follow vreaa on twitter
- Chat Thread wp.me/pcq1o-5vD 3 weeks ago
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Tags
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
Good job poco. If you post with my name, be smarter. I have an picture beside my name. Grow up dude. I didn’t post with your name. You need some boji buddy. But with your attitude, you can’t. No one wants to give you any.
Perhaps all is not lost in Kelowna resort town. Come April’s Fool Day
- 90 per cent of home buyers will be eligible for a provincial HST rebate of up to $42,500, and
- purchasers of new secondary vacation / recreation homes can claim a
up to $42,500 as well.
In that case, buy both and get $85,000 HST rebates.
You pay the HST… after April 1st too? Meesa so confused!
Regarding the repealing of the HST and the interim 2% tax or whatever it is. The whole thing confuses me enough I don’t want to bother. I’ll just buy used; I know what I am getting and no tax confusion.
I’m probably alone, but then most of the province voted to repeal the HST so heck maybe rationality isn’t the driving force of prices these days. But best of luck to builders nonetheless!
The reality of the HST or non-HST regime is that houses are priced by the market in terms of what the final $$$ outlay is going to be.
In other words, neither buyers or sellers are so moronic that they’d buy based only on the asking price (well, some probably are moronic… but let’s just say that most are rational actors).
In other words, if you remove the taxes on new house sales sellers will be inclined to ask for more and to pocket more. Buyers will be inclined to try to find deals. You meet somewhere in the middle.
And, if you add a tax, buyers only have so much money and sellers know that. Again, you meet somewhere in the middle.
Removing a tax may mean an increase in the asking price of houses (realtors will love those stats, of course), but I suspect that it will do very little in terms of the actual amount that people go into debt for a house.
I have to completely disagree with you here. I don’t think you get a majority of rational actors in real estate until you’re talking about multi-unit apartment buildings or high value centrally located land to be redeveloped to highest and best use.
Everyone else focuses on monthly payment. Look at the difference in total cost paid for the same unit between someone putting 5% down, 30 year am with CMHC fees rolled in, and someone putting 20% down, 25 year am. $300k property. One guy’s paying $419,094, the other’s paying $486,326, ignoring closing costs and inflation. Is the thought process really “I’m willing to pay $66,000* extra just for the privilege of getting into the market now rather than waiting until I’ve saved 20%”? Hell no, he’s thinking “$$1,310 a month plus condo fees? I can afford that!” He doesn’t even factor in property taxes.
* Actually it’ll be more, as the above calculations assume renewing at 3.49% for the life of the mortgage
But the monthly payment is directly related to the entire cost of purchase. That is what the market ‘sees’ as it were.
As far as people not being rational… no argument there in this market.
Ghost Estates in Ireland, ghost cities in China and now there are ghost towns in…..Spain (?). Yup, that’s right. I could not believe this article when I came across it.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2102074/Spain-haunted-ghost-towns-built-boom-years-unemployment-tops-5million.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
What is most interesting here is that all of the worst case scenarios discussed on this site are actually happening there. Falling rents, surging supply, crashing home prices and an unemployment rate that is through the roof.
I doubt it will ever get so bad in Canada so we might comfort ourselves by knowing about the pain in another market similar to our own. Spain was Canada’s contender for quite awhile for a seat on the UN Security council. They had a GDP not far off our own and a booming economy. Well that did not last and in the end we lost our seat anyway.
The article is instructive where excess is concerned. Worthy of a read.
Who says ‘Pay to Play’ is dead?….
[CBC] – B.C. home builders ‘applaud’ HST transition rules
…”He said starting April 1, 2012, the government will raise the HST rebate threshold for new home buyers to $850,000, up from the current $525,000, meaning more than 90 per cent of newly built homes will now be eligible for a provincial HST rebate of up to $42,500.
After the HST end date, those who buy a home built before April 1, 2013, will pay a two per cent transition tax on the full house price, he said.
Phil Hochstein, president of the Independent Contractors and Builders Association of B.C., said the HST changes are well thought out and are “definitely worth the wait.”…
http://tinyurl.com/7kc6jyr
At this point, I would imagine the UsualSuspects consider their campaign contributions… “Money well spent.”
I did a search of kelowna for a house with 2 or more bedrooms and 2 or more bathrooms and got 277 results.
I did another search for condos and got 479 properties.
With a population of 118,500 this would indicate to me that the flippers are getting scared and are trying to unload at a profit.
Other towns in the okanagan are also feeling the “getting out with a profit syndrome”.
Nem, I appreciate your palpable evidence….
I live in Winfield, in an upscale development called “The Lakes.” This should be on here, as it’s a huge development which was supposed to build out at least 280 houses, but stalled less than halfway through.
Thankfully, I sold in Vancouver in 2011 and bought here after the prices fell significantly.
But here’s the funny part, there are easily 50 houses/lots for sale right now that aren’t selling, and as of the last few weeks, some developers began breaking ground on what will be another 50-75 houses to add to that list.
I personally know two people selling, one an owner and the other the busiest realtor in the area, and both tell me the same thing, no interest, no buyers.
So, I have no idea what these developers are smoking, but when it runs out they’re going to have one heck of a hangover.