“My concern about this continuing decrease in the US house market is that it appears to be setting them up for an increase in business. My job here in Canada could very well be done by an American faciliy within our own company, and now the US is releasing information that only seems to confirm that their economy is starting to finally grow again. A high Canadian dollar and an extremely high cost of living (housing) combine to make me less competitive against my counterparts in the US. They can agree to take lower compensation and still have a nicer house (better standard of living) than I… my productivity levels are comparable or better when comparing apples to apples, but I get less bang for my buck. Housing prices must come down to ensure that Canada is still competitive on the international stage.”
- Burbs Boy at VCI 29 Feb 2012 12:34pm
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- Real Estate Tsunami on “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.”
- LadyInWaiting on “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.”
- Nemesis on “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.”
- terminalcitygirl on “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.”
- Xyz on “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.”
- rod_jonsson on “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.”
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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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‘”They can agree to take lower compensation and still have a nicer house (better standard of living) than I”
Standard of living extends a long way beyond the house you reside in.
Yes. Most of those other things are also more attractive in most areas of the US.
Standard of living extends a long way beyond the house you reside in.
Which is precisely why someone might opt to relocate for lower cost housing. Same house, less money. Money that is then used to enhance your standard of living in other ways.
In the late 1990s, the “brain drain” was the issue of the day in the Globe and Mail and National Post. Possibly we are on the verge of a revival of that nasty little term. More likely, housing will correct here before that becomes a major issue. Employment is still weak in the US, limiting the opportunities to relocate there. The ones relocating right now are the ones who were smart enough to cash in at the top of the Canadian housing bubble, then go look for greener and cheaper pastures down south. I’m sure we can all agree – that opportunity has a limited shelf life.
You will find, as a general rule, that the nice places in the world to live in have high real estate prices. Inner city Detroit has some very cheap real estate, by comparison.
Yes. I would certainly agree with those statements. Canada has diverged from its primary trading partner in a way that puts our economy at a real disadvantage. We are now at least 5 years (possibly more) behind the US in the great deleveraging process and coming off one of the biggest credit binges either country ever experienced. It means unemployment could be spiking here even as a recovery takes place there for example. For us it will be more trying. We do not control the worlds reserve currency. Generally, our fixes must be paid out of current revenues and tax flows and budgeted based on the collective national output. It means that we could face some hard medicine in the future as the country grapples with slower growth amidst deep indebtedness.
The deleveraging process itself will drive down our dollar when the Fed bails out the CMHC…affordable housing and a competitive manufacturing centre. Cost to rape our land of resources will also go down. In response, the fed can finally raise rates! I think this will be the first national recession where the best fiscal policy is raising rates!
Agree that the housing bubble deflation will happen in parallel with a weakening loonie.
We don’t have a Fed.
Developers eat your petrodollar macro for breakfast.
Indeed, housing prices must come down or we will lose competitiveness. And so they will as housing prices slowly deflate. But listen up all you aspiring vultures; there may be a ray of hope after the correction, provided that is you have cash and a decent credit rating.
From down USA way we got this little nugget of information today:
In an analysis of the 325 major metropolitan real estate markets across the globe, the U.S. was home to the top 24 most affordable markets, according to Demographia’s 2012 International Housing Affordability Survey……there has never been a better time to buy a house. It is cheaper to own – based on the monthly payments at the current interest rates of under four percent – than it is to rent in just about every market across the United States. In Phoenix, for example, it is 21 percent cheaper to own than it is to rent. In Minneapolis, it is 28 percent.
From the Financial Post: Titled: The Latest in Bulk buying: Houses!
http://business.financialpost.com/2012/03/01/the-latest-in-bulk-buying-houses/
The loonie isn’t “high”. It just didn’t fall like the USD and Euro did. The complaints that the loonie is too high are based on really weak arguments. If anything, our competitiveness is hurting because the C$ was extremely low throughout the 1990s, and our exporters came to depend on that exchange rate. Again, that was more due to an overvalued USD than anything on this side of the 49th.
The economic benefits of a currency devaluation are every bit as fleeting and illusory as the “wealth” increase that results from a housing bubble.
I sold a house in 2000 and bought GOLD and SILVER. Man did I ever make REAL MONEY.
Aren’t gold and silver real money already?
They are a store of value, which is one function of money.
This doesn’t even make sense. There’s obviously a lot of noise in the data but generally speaking Van house prices measured in gold drifted up between 2000 and 2007. The best time to have done a RE:PM swap would have been been the summer of 2007.
makes perfect sense. GOLD has gone up from $250 to $1900. Real estate in Vancouver has gone up from approx. $300k to 900k. HELLO! Do the math..