“Part of the reason that people get grumpy about the games is inflated expectations: the Olympics are always mis-sold. First, host governments say that the economic benefits of the games will greatly outweigh their costs. Second, they claim that the games will inspire people to exercise more. Third, they predict intangible benefits from being in the global spotlight for a couple of weeks. The first two claims are rubbish; the third does not apply to London.” [Nor did it to Vancouver. -ed.]
- from ‘Rewards of the rings’, The Economist, 21 Jul 2012
Most Recent Comments:
- Cleta on David Dodge – “Look mister borrower, you’ve gotta have an equity stake in this as well… so that if things go really bad, it’s not all on the Canadian taxpayer, part of it is on you.”
- These Compare Favorably With The Other Home Affordability Services Offered, Such As The Washingtonmutual Mortgage Loan Modification ! | vybogyciqony 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
- Real Estate Tsunami on Chat Thread
- Nemesis on Chat Thread
- Nemesis on Chat Thread
- jj on Chat Thread
- ANON on Chat Thread
- Real Estate Tsunami on Chat Thread
- bailinginbc on Chat Thread
- Nemesis on Chat Thread
- Any mouse on Chat Thread
- Hymie Garshman on Taking A Break
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
VREAArchives
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- October 2008
- September 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
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
I agree……..especially in regards to the “perceived” economic benefits, many of which are grossly over inflated and/or outright lies, versus the eventualy long term debt that the host city has to end up talking on going forward.
I live in both Calgary and Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, which as you know has just been “awarded” (I love that fictitious term for being named the top city with the biggest pockets that was able to pay off the corrupt IOC officials) the 2016 summer games. Rio will show the world what your post really means as they will get the Gold medal in the event called “Corruption and Economic Entitlement thru socialisation of losses”……………
Can’t help but think that Athens 2004 had a little bit to do with what happened later
Everyone loves a sporting festival… But some festivals are more ‘sporting’ than others.
Jingoism at its finest.
[BloomBerg] – [ShedsWithBeds!] East End Has Thousands in Illegal Squalor Near Olympics
“Five thousand meters from London’s gleaming, white-spoked Olympic Stadium — a 3.1-mile distance that games organizer and gold medalist Sebastian Coe once ran in 14 minutes and 6 seconds — Christine Lyons has ferreted out a modern-day scene evocative of Victorian England.
In a side street with cracked, weedy paving covered in litter and rubble, just past an old stable, she knocks at a whitewashed shed built of bricks. A Hungarian couple in their 20s open the door to the single room they rent for 155 pounds ($240) a week. There’s barely space to walk around a bed, a chair, a table, a bicycle, a rack covered with drying clothes and a sink on the wall. A bathroom is closed off in a corner. A bare light bulb hangs in the middle of the ceiling.
“This was built as a store to put things in, not somewhere to live,” says Lyons, 45, the chief planning enforcer of the London borough of Newham, host of the Olympics. The shed was improperly built and lacks insulation, she says. The owners have been sent a warning letter that they may be cited for violating planning laws. The maximum fine is 20,000 pounds, Lyons says.
Armed with a thermal map produced by a flyover in March, Lyons is searching for unlawful “sheds with beds,” as the borough council calls them. There are as many as 10,000 outbuildings where people may live illegally in the 14-square- mile East End district, she says. Raids have found as many as four people sleeping in a single backyard shed and sharing a filthy shower and toilet that aren’t always properly connected to the sewage system.”…
http://tinyurl.com/cgcpqkz
[Reuters/Opinion] – Who’d Want to Host The Olympics?
…”…as Wednesday’s woeful economic data confirmed Britain’s slide into a double-dip recession, it’s worth questioning whether hosting the Olympics is worth the $14.5 billion cost. In strict financial terms none ever actually make money. Some host cities have turned profits since Los Angeles was the first to do so in 1984, escaping the crippling public debt incurred by cities like Montreal and Vancouver. But, as a recent report by Goldman Sachs points out, “most countries … have treated the cost of constructing facilities and infrastructure, together with security and other ancillary costs, as being separate from the cost of running the Games themselves.”
In other words, it’s possible to declare an operating profit while incurring huge losses on major expenditures that may not be recovered for decades. Beijing trumpeted a $171 million profit made on operating costs, while neglecting to mention the $40 billion-dollar infrastructure buildup it made ahead of the 2008 Games. The $5 billion to $6 billion the London Olympics earn will not even begin to cover the cost of infrastructure and security alone. Even if it did, half of revenue is split among International Olympic Committee members.”…
http://tinyurl.com/ckerwfp
How many people actually decide to visit, move, or invest in a place, just because at some point it hosted the Olympics? Anyway, there’s an Olympics every other year, in a different location each time. It’s a roving spotlight.
The Olympics scam…where do I start? The most annoying thing for me is having some media cartel attempt to push this ridiculously vapid jock-fest as some sort of communal religious experience…. “Do you BELIEVE?”
No, I don’t. Now slag off…..
My sentiments exactly, kabloona. The whole thing is such a crock. What gets me too is all the exaggerated, hand-on-heart nationalism.
And what’s with this medal count thing? Why does that matter? Is Canada any better off for having won X number of medals in 2010?
And it’s even sillier when you see Russia, China, North Korea, and others whose athletics programs are granted massive state subsidies. International prowess at the expense of the people.
Forget parting with my money; you couldn’t pay me to attend the Olympics in London. Art and architecture are my two hobbies, and never before have I seen so much ugliness at such a high price tag. The stuff is so ugly and offensive that I’m starting to believe the conspiracy theorists have a point. . .
I didn’t mind the Olympics. However, I’m in peak physical condition, so it was refreshing to see other beautiful, passionate people gathering in town.